Tempest of the Fae
by D.Mentor
Summary: Harry Hermione and Luna have a chance to go back and stop Voldemort and his war thanks to the fairies. They will not be controlled, they will not be manipulated, they will make their enemies soil themselves in fear. Dumbledore Ron Molly Ginny bashing! Innuendo and Humor! Response to Paladeus's challenge "Champions of Lilith"
1. Chapter 1

(A/N: This story is in response to Paladeus Challenge 11: "The Fairy Queen's Personal Army". I've had the idea for a while and decided to work on it when I take a break from The Twisted Wand.)

Disclaimer: I own neither the Harry Potter world nor Santa, but if the poisoned cookies work that might change soon.

Tempest of the Fae

Chapter One: Santa's last gifts

0-O-0

Hermione walked into the kitchen to find Harry Potter, her lover, tied to a chair and stripped to his boxers. He was glaring at the blond who stood by the counter, a large bowl in her hands and a look of concentration on her face. "Luna dear why did you tie up Harry?"

"Do I really need a reason?" Luna asked with a quick glance up from her bowl.

"I suppose not but I figure you have one anyways." Hermione grabbed a banana and began to peal it, she smirked at Harry as she did so. Luna must have silenced him as well because he only gave her a mock glare back.

"Well he didn't want to let me make pudding for breakfast. Clearly he's gone insane and is only useful to us now for the sex." Luna said as she set the bowl down and began to search for another ingredient.

"You mean he can't cook anymore either?" Hermione asked, trying to sound put out.

Luna paused. "No, he can still cook. Cooking and sex."

Hermione ignored harry as eh made a noise of protest. "Sounds like one of your bad novels. You know he'll get you back when you release him."

"Oh I hope so." Luna shot Harry a seductive grin before she returned to the bowl. When the pudding was finished Luna released Harry.

He summoned his clothes and quickly dressed. Then as Luna was about to take her first bite of her breakfast he waved his wand and the ropes that had bound him jumped up to wrap around her. Luna was pulled back against the chair, her bowl taunting her from the edge of the table. "Harry!"

"Just a little revenge." Harry said as he turned to dig through the cold cupboard for the bacon.

Luna began to rock back and forth, leaning forward on each attempt as far as she could. The bowl was just out of reach. Harry shot a sticking charm at the chair legs, Luna jerked as the chair's motion suddenly stopped. Despite her best efforts it refused to budge. "Hermione!"

"You brought it on yourself. Must you two play in the kitchen?" Hermione asked, though she did enjoy their light hearted games.

"Must we? Probably not but why risk it." Harry said. He then began to make himself and Hermione a real breakfast. While Luna could survive on nothing but sweets the other two preferred a bit of real food now and then; and he defiantly wanted a full breakfast for what he had planned for the day. Hunting death eaters should never be undertaken on an empty stomach.

0-O-0

That evening Harry stepped into Potter Manor and collapsed onto a couch. He'd barely set down before Luna was on his lap curled against him. He and Hermione had agreed some time ago that Luna had to be part cat. Of course that conversation had arisen from the fact that if they didn't find other things to do she'd spend time most nights running around, thankfully between the two of them they were able to distract her.

Luna leaned up and kissed him. "How did it go?"

"Not good, there were only new recruits out; no one worth going after." Harry said as he reached down and stroked Luna hair. Normally she and Hermione would have gone with him to scout out Serpents Alley, England's new, and only, magical shopping district. However both were still recovering from injuries received the previous month.

"Maybe next time then." Luna mumbled in to his chest. What neither would say was that it had been over a year since they had managed to take anyone important to Voldemort's operation.

Hermione walked into the room, drying her hands on a towel. "Alright you two, up. Dinners ready."

Harrys head jerked up and he looked questioningly at Luna. He loved them, he truly did but neither could cook. Luna's definition of edible, at least beyond sweets, was questionable. And Hermione just could not cook; make a complex potion with her eyes closed? Sure, she'd won a bet doing that. Boil noodles? No.

Luna smiled. "Take out."

"Thank Merlin." Harry whispered.

"Actually thank Dr. Lingling's Chinese takeout." Hermione said as she pulled Luna off of him then helped him up.

0-O-0

After dinner Luna begged until they agreed to play Quibbler with her. It was based off of a muggle trading card game she had found when they still lived in London. She painted magical images of creatures from her late father's magazine and assigned them health and attacks. Over the years she had expanded the game to several hundred cards in all. Of course since she made the cards in nearly every game she had some surprise for them.

Luna had once tried to craft figurines for the game, when that failed she had settled for small illusions tied to each card. Quibbler had proved a welcome distraction for them from the war and the winner's prize was nothing to sneeze at either. Actually even the loser never complained about giving the winner their prize. Though Luna had been known to play dirty, such as removing her clothes in strictly non-strip games. After that time Luna had begun to make her cards impervious to liquids.

As they sat at the table Luna pulled out her newest deck. "Normal strip rules? An article of clothing for every hundred points lost then favors?"

"That depends." Hermione said as she gave Luna a critical eye. "How many clothes are you wearing?"

The first time Luna had suggested strip Quibbler Hermione was convinced it was because she was wearing a different amount of clothes then them, well she was it just turned out to be less. To this day they had never finished a game of strip Quibbler.

"I'm wearing the necessities." Luna said, when Hermione raised a questioning eyebrow she elaborated. "Necessities for other people; I know how much you two like to drag it out."

"Alright then." Hermione said.

Luck was with Harry and he drew his Snorkark early into the game. Within three rounds Hermione had lost her socks and Luna her socks and earrings. Harry had almost gotten Hermione's shirt off as well but she'd been saved by one of 'Fudge's old time Goblin Pies'. Then on Luna's next turn she drew her card and began her evil laugh. It would have put any muggle supper villain to shame and fit right in on Saturday morning cartoons. "The game is mine, I play, Santa!"

She threw the card onto the table, and a cloud of soot rolled out of the chimney. Instantly Harry, Hermione, and Luna had their wands out. The three wands were trained on the opening of the fireplace as something moved within the chimney. The fireplace wasn't connected to the floo; in fact it was warded against such travel. It wouldn't even expand enough to let someone through, instead it was supposed to contract. Still, as they watched the opening seemed to expand and a pair of black boots appeared. They kicked as whoever they were attached to struggled to free themselves.

Suddenly the fireplace yawned open as a short round thing rolled out. Honestly its appearance reminded harry of a young Dudley, at least in weight. The white bread ruined that image. The red suit was a bit confusing as well, not good for sneaking around in.

Hermione let out an exasperated sigh. "Luna dear I know you want to make your cards more realistic but honestly give us a warning or something?"

"That one isn't mine. This one is mine." Luna said as she gestured down to the three inch tall Santa on the table next to her card that appeared to be flexing.

"But then." Hermione started, she never got to finish as Luna pounced on the intruder.

"Hey now, ow I'm still attached to that, no, ow." The figure said as Luna finally claimed the bag that had rolled out after him and jumped back.

Hermione looked between Luna and the intruder. "Luna?"

"It's alright it's just Santa." Luna said as she began to struggle with the thick knot holding the bag closed.

"But you said." Hermione started again.

"I said he wasn't mine. He's the real Santa." Luna explained absently, most of her attention of the bag as her tongue stuck out in concentration.

"And you're the real Luna, no one else is ever rude enough to tackle me and steal my bag like that. Really I thought you would have learned after last time." Santa said as he stood and dusted himself off.

"Last time?" Harry questioned. His kept his wand raised but relaxed his aim.

Luna pouted. "Santa was mean to me."

"Was not! At eight she somehow managed to get the drop on me, literally. She was crouching on the mantel when I arrived; only a few children in the world can even see me so I was understandable surprised. Then she tried to crawl into my bag!" Santa said.

"I was trying to get my presents, and a ride to the North Pole. I had it all planned out too, Butterbeer for the reindeer so they take me to your secret workshop. I'd charm Mrs Claus, bribe the elf's with cookies and promise vacations to the yeti's." Luna explained.

"Have you ever sent a yeti on vacation? It's not easy. Last time they went to Florida and now they have a whole legend around them, call 'em Sunk Apes. Apparently a few of them partied too hard and passed out." Santa retorted.

"Well there was no need for you to curse me afterwards." Luna said with all the dignity of a five year old.

"It wasn't that bad."

"Not that bad! I couldn't play in the snow for the rest of winter! It all melted as soon as I touched it! Daddy thought I caught Jamaican fever." Luna said.

Harry and Hermione traded glances, each wondering if they'd been potioned. This couldn't be real, even with Luna. Finally Luna succeeded in opening the bag, but pouted when she realized the only thing inside was a rolled up parchment. "Where are the gifts?"

"What powers my bag?" Santa asked patiently.

"Fairy magic of course." Luna replied.

"Exactly, so if it is empty then." Santa prompted.

Luna took a step back and began to shake, immediately Harry pulled her to him. "But, but then that means."

"Sadly yes. Fairy magic is all but gone." Santa said.

"Will someone explain what's going on?" Hermione demanded.

"Yes yes I suppose I should." Santa walked over to the table and took Luna's seat. He reached out and played with the illusion of himself on the table. "You see Hermione the reason Luna is so upset is because my bag is powered by fairy magic, for it to be out means there's no more fairy magic, and for that to happen we would all have to be dead."

"You don't look dead." Hermione said, still she watched him with a critical eye. If Santa was real then a ghost Santa might not be too far off.

"I'm not, yet, though it will be soon. You see fairies are physical, we eat just like everyone else but our magic, our magic is separate from our physical bodies. It comes from good dreams, hopes of the future, a child's wonder, joy. One reason fairies were so attracted to Luna was that her carefree spirit was a feast for our magic. But now, now this war has consumed the world; there just isn't enough left to feed our magic. And without our magic we die." Santa leaned back a sighed. "Not to mention Tom has been capturing us and trying to find the source of our magic. Oh he never will. It's too far beyond his understanding to believe it comes from positive things like hope. Hasn't stopped him from killing us in an attempt to discover our secrets though." Santa said. With a wave of his hand the small illusion of him disappeared, alone with the rest of the cards.

Luna was sitting on Harrys lap and was almost in tears. "So you will all die?"

"Yes, one way or another. However you can give our death a meaning. And we can give all of you a chance." Santa said.

"What do you mean?" Hermione asked.

"Our queen, Lilith, has devised a plan. You see she, unlike the rest of us receives her power from her children. The more of us there are the more magic we have and the stronger she is. As it stands she will soon starve to death. So instead she wants to gather all of our remaining magic and have me make one last gift. Quantum Quartz. It is the same substance used in time turners." Santa explained.

"Time travel? But the paradoxes-." Hermione began before Santa held up a hand to silence her.

"The method of fairy time travel is a bit different than yours. Instead of there being two of you, the you that you are now will join with the you that you were. There will only be one, a combination of both. Hence no paradoxes." Santa said.

"So why us?" Harry said.

"Because we know of the prophecy, in fact I have already traveled back in time once. Trust me the future I came from was even worse than this one. Imagine a magical, nuclear holocaust; where nightmares themselves have been given life to torment the world; everything hidden under a poisons gloom the rotted the soul itself. Hardly anyone lasted more than a year. Thankfully I was able to avoid that this time with a well-timed snowstorm and a slinky. But I was unable to stop Tom, and we have discovered why. That prophecy has made you Harry, and Tom, linchpins in time. Only you can stop him, hence why we are offering you this chance." Santa said, as he spoke they could almost see the horrors he spoke of. Harry reached out and put an arm around Hermione as Luna hid against his chest.

"How far back would we go?" Hermione said.

"I do not know. We can provide the Quantum Quartz and ritual to send you back but the power will decide how far and the size of the quartz will determine how many may go. I can make enough for the three of you only." Santa said.

Hermione tried to work out the calculations in her head. "The further back the more power it takes, to get to a time when we can actually make changes and prevent the war would require. I can't even imagine how much magic."

"Well there is only one place in the country that has enough magic." Santa said. "Hogwarts."

"But Voldemort has controlled it for almost a decade." Harry said.

"Yes but I can get you in, to the Room of Requirements. Oh don't look like that I do know a few secrets still." Santa said to their astonished faces. "Once inside the room will protect you while you prepare for the ritual."

"Then we go back and stop this." Hermione said.

"Yes." Santa waved his hand and summoned his bag, it flew to him and he removed the rolled up parchment from inside passing it to Hermione. "The instructions are in there, take good care of it. It is one of my last gifts to give. Harry once we reach Hogwarts I will use our last magic to make the quartz you three will need. And little Luna, you will receive something you have long wanted. A ride in my sleigh."

Luna leapt out of Harry's lap and tackled Santa to the floor, his arms shot out as he tried to stop himself. "Ouch, do you have any idea just how old I am?"

"Sorry." Luna jumped up before pulling Santa off the ground.

"You realize we haven't agreed to anything yet right?" Harry said.

"But you will. You are all good and will take any chance to fix things. Besides I do have a secret weapon." Santa jerked his thumb towards Luna who was pouting at the thought of not getting her sleigh ride.

"Hermione?" Harry sighed.

"If we can save everyone, stop the war, go back." Hermione trailed off. She didn't need to continue, Harry knew she was thinking about her parents.

"Fine." Harry said.

"Excellent! Then we must hurry. Gather what you will need, you will not be returning." Santa said. Quickly the three humans left to get their bags, they were always prepared to make a run for it if need be.

Five minutes later they were back in the living room with their bags. Luna was bouncing in place, Harry smirked at her antics. "I haven't seen you this excited since you convinced Mr. Fortescue to try his hand at pudding when he took over the shop for his father."

"Mmm, that was good." Luna said then pouted. "Still can't believe he banned me for life."

"Well you did try to break in and steal the recipe." Hermione pointed out.

"But he wouldn't give me anymore." Luna said.

"It was ten at night and you'd already eaten all his stock." Hermione said.

"That's no excuse." Luna said. "Can we go for our ride now?"

Harry just shook his head. "Hold onto your reindeer."

Lune mock glared at him. "Maybe I will."

Santa looked them over. "Ready? Good."

He snapped his fingers. The sensation was confusing; there was the familiar pull of a portkey along with the disoriented spinning of the floo, and the sooty smell. The next moment the three of them were sitting in Santa's sleigh, Hermione and Luna on the bench, Harry upside down with his feet in the air. Santa appeared a moment later and frowned. "Hmm, fireplaces really do hate you, never seen that before."

Harry struggled to sit up and finally managed it. Luna was bouncing in her seat between them. The reindeer stamped the roof impatiently. Santa flicked the reins and with a jerk they took to the air. Hermione kept a tight grip on the sleigh. Harry and Luna had helped her deal with heights, she could stand them but she still wasn't particularly thrilled by them.

Luna on the other hand was even more excited now that they were in the air. She threw her hands up and yelled with joy. Harry turned to look at Potter Manor as they passed over Loch Troll. It appeared to be a five story log cabin, not even a summer home by pure blood standards because it simple wasn't grand enough; to them though it had been their home. There was the garden Hermione started as a distraction for them, and the Snorkark house Luna had built in case one ever wondered around while they were gone.

As they flew over southern Scotland Harry enjoyed the flight, it hadn't been safe to fly a broom over long distances in years. As he watched the scenery Luna bolted past Santa and jumped onto the nearest reindeer. Before they could call out to her she had unhooked it and moved alongside the sleigh. Her evil laugh sounded even more intimidating when she was on a flying creature. She wrapped her arms around its neck and urged it on. The reindeer disappeared under the sleigh, when it came up on the other side it was upside down. Luna held on with her legs and grabbed Harrys head, planting a searing kiss on him before she moved to Hermione and squeezed her breast.

"She stole my reindeer!" Santa shouted.

"She stole a kiss." Harry said.

"She grabbed my breast!" Hermione said.

Together they sighed. "Luna."

Santa glared at Harry. "You know this is your fault right?"

"How's it my fault?"

"You just had to give her ideas. 'Hold your reindeer' indeed." Santa grumbled.

As they drew near Hogwarts Luna pulled her reindeer alongside the sleigh and jumped. Harry barely managed to catch her. The reindeer fell back inline, though it was no longer connected to them. "That was amazing! Harry can we get reindeer?"

"If you want." Harry said as he moved her over to the free seat. He had figured out long ago he couldn't say no to Luna or Hermione when they truly wanted something. It was easier to just agree and save time. They tensed as they reached Hogwarts ward line but they passed through without incident. Quietly they moved until they were hovering outside a window on the seventh floor. They all climbed inside, Santa waved his hand and the sleigh disappeared, the reindeer remained a moment before, with a sad look towards Santa, his loyal companions flew away.

They were only one hall away from the Room of Requirements. When they reached the proper spot Santa walked in front of the wall until the door appeared. "Alright, Hermione you still have the parchment? Good. Stand back and I will present my final gift."

"Santa?" Luna said.

"Yes my dear?" He said.

"Could you bag have ever, you know?" Luna asked.

"No, I am sorry but it could never have given you that." Santa said.

With tears in her eyes Luna nodded. Harry and Hermione each put an arm around her.

"One last thing, time does not like to be changed; so long as Tom is alive it will resist your changes, sometimes in improbable ways. But by the same method smaller things will constantly be different. Just because it happened one way the first time doesn't mean it will again even if you do everything the same. So don't be afraid to make changes but don't worry if not everything follows those changes right away. Oh and incase I forgot to mention it each person can only use this ritual once." Santa closed his eyes and began to grow, magic swirled around him, and the entire castle seemed to vibrate with it. Then he reached into his bag and pulled out a fist sized lump of green quartz. He handed it to Harry before he began to fade. They watched until he was completely gone before they entered the room.

0-O-0

Santa was not completely gone yet though, he still had enough magic for a little fairy mischief. When Headmaster Snape woke in the morning and put on his shoes he found them filled with chunks of coal. The students suffered for that.

0-O-0

(A/N: This chapter was originally twice as long so I broke it up. Because this is just a side project for me I'll try to keep the chapters around four thousand words a post so I don't get swamped down. Comments and critiques are welcome; flames will be force feed to a random minion.)


	2. Going back with a bang

Disclaimer: I own neither the Harry Potter world nor Santa, but if the poisoned cookies work that might change soon.

Tempest of the Fae

Chapter Two: Going back with a bang

Harry sat and stirred the caldron while Hermione and Luna carved runes into the stone floor. He truly thought they had pushed the Room of Requirements to it limits this time. It was now a cavernous space, several times larger than the great hall, where shadows crept in at the edges. The only warm spot in the massive room was the small area they had used as living space for the last week.

It was bare when you considered the room could provide just about anything they wanted. But they had all been so focused on their project they barely had time to eat. Not for the first time Harry wished he had taken ancient runes so he could help them carve out the ritual circles. Instead he had a far worse job. He sat there stirring a caldron, a caldron filled with their collective blood needed to bond the magic to them and act as a focus for the magic.

But no, Hermione and Luna said it was much more than just copying the symbols and refused to let him help them, so he was on potion duty. How so many instructions could fit on the parchment Santa gave them Harry couldn't figure out and went with the simple answer of magic.

Over the last week they had learned a great deal thanks to the room. Including that it could reproduce any book within the castle; this helped in a number of ways. Apparently Dumbledore had a stash of journals no one had found, they quickly read through them. Among his ramblings were disturbing plans for Harry to sacrifice himself to Voldemort. Perhaps the worst though was Dumbledore's theory that Harrys scar was a horocux and he would have to die to kill Voldemort.

That news had almost driven Luna and Hermione to find out if the room could revive a dead person just for them to be killed again. They had lost a day of work as Hermione and Luna comforted Harry and made him swear he wouldn't do anything stupid. They assured him it was only a theory Dumbledore had and even if it was true they'd figure out another way. Harry smiled as he remembered that night; they were both determined to remind him how much they loved him.

Sadly Snape was to paranoid to write much down but when she was bored Luna took to reading the journals of the professors and came across some interesting entries from their old classmate Draco. Apparently he was angry that Voldemort had gotten Pansy killed on a suicide mission against the British army.

This had led to an unlikely alliance between them. To power the ritual they needed to tie directly into the Hogwarts wards, they found the room could let them into the ward stone chamber but they still needed an outlet on their end for the magic. The simple solution was the Sorting Hat. It was tied to the school as well, but for some reason the room couldn't make a direct passage into the Headmaster's office. Hermione worked out it was a ward not directly tied to the school Snape had added, paranoid bugger.

Luna had come up with the idea to enlist Draco's help in getting the Sorting Hat. So one night they had snuck into his chambers and stunned him. After questioning under veritaserum an understandable grumpy Draco had agreed to help on the condition that if they succeeded and went back they would save Pansy. They had also made him give an oath that he wouldn't relieve anything about their plan to anyone. They weren't completely stupid after all.

Now they just needed to wait for Draco to bring them the Sorting Hat.

As he checked the potion again Harry wondered if he could leave it long enough to sneak down to the kitchen, the room could make a passage there without a problem and the house elves all made sure not to see them when they made a food run; though some of their favorite foods always seemed to be in an out of the way corner just begging to be taken. Once again Harry made a mental note to never underestimate a house elf.

0-O-0

Luna yawned as she finished checking the last rune. They had been forced to brew the potion twice more before each rune had been filled in; and blood replenishing potion could only help so much. Their faces were drawn and waxy, cast a sickly green by the light of the quartz, but they were almost ready.

A rabbit patronus appeared in the room. "Let me in, hurry."

Luna had found no end to her amusement when it was revealed that Draco had a rabbit patronus as well, though his was actually smaller then Luna's which Hermione had called a jackrabbit before. Harry moved to the door and opened it just enough for Draco to slip in.

"That was close." Draco said, his face was flush from running.

"What happened?" Harry asked.

"I had a perfect opportunity to take it last night and took the chance. I was going to deliver it after classes today. Snape noticed it was missing around noon and sent everyone to search for it. Some crazy fifth years decided to try a point me spell and I barely managed to avoid them." Draco said as he pulled the Sorting Hat from under his robes.

"Finally! I may not need to breath but I don't enjoy being stuffed somewhere like that. And look, you've bent my brim!" The Sorting Hat complained.

Harry reached for it but Draco pulled it back. "You remember our agreement?"

"Yes. If this works we'll do everything we can to save her, you have our oaths." Harry said as he took the hat and passed it to Luna.

Draco looked at the complex rune circles that crisscrossed the floor. "And you're sure I can't come?"

Hermione sighed, that had been a big sticking point when enlisting Malfoys help. "Yes, there's is only enough Quantum Quartz to send three people back, and none of us are staying behind to trade places with you."

Luna threw an arm around Draco shoulder. "Don't worry bro we'll make sure Pansy lives."

With a grunt of disgust Draco threw off her arm. "I am not your brother."

This too had become common over the last few days. Luna loved to tease Draco ever since she saw his patronus. "Come on, blond hair, bunny patronus, you could be a long lost Lovegood."

"It is not a bunny! And I am a Malfoy, not a Lovegood." Draco shouted.

"Enough, Luna stop teasing your long lost brother." Hermione said.

Draco glared at her and gave an exasperated grunt. "How the bloody hell do you put up with them Potter?"

Harry shrugged, "What can I say I love them." He paused for a moment before he held out his invisibility cloak to Draco.

Draco looked at it skeptically. "What are you playing at Potter?"

"If we succeed then it won't matter but if we fail, this'll help you get away." Harry said.

Reluctantly Draco accepted the cloak. Harry felt a pang of loss as he left with it but reminded himself they couldn't take it with them. He walked over to the Sorting Hat. "Hermione explained what we need?"

"Yes, a very ambitious idea. I'll help. It beats being locked in the blasted glass case under a blanket again." The Sorting Hat grumbled.

Luna bent down and kissed the tip of the Sorting Hat. "Thank you. Is there anything we can do for you when we get back?"

"See if you can't get me out of the headmaster office more often. Listening to that old coot mumble to himself all day was so boring." The Sorting Hat said.

"You got it." Harry said.

Slowly the moved into their positions around the quartz. They took each other's hands. Hermione bit her lip "Last chance for us to back out."

"Why? There's nothing left for us now." Luna said.

Harry squeezed their hands. "If you ladies are ready? Parchment destroyed?"

They nodded. If they failed they didn't want there to be a chance for someone else to try this. Without magic the room itself should collapse so they didn't need to worry about that. Luna smiled at her two lovers. "You both remember the instructions for getting through my house's wards if we end up back during the summer?"

"We do, though its far more likely we'll arrive during the school year." Hermione said, than gave Harry a stern look. "And you, no trying advanced magic like apparating until we're all together. We don't know if our skills will carry back properly."

"I promise I won't go playing around unless it's an emergency." Harry said.

There was no complex command to activate the runes. They had settled on a simple phrase that would start the process once the command rune was charged, Hermione tapped her wand to the rune that would activate upon the phrase and set it. Together they spoke the command, they had agreed, if anything should go wrong they wanted it to be the last thing they heard. "I love you."

0-O-0

Snape sat in the Headmaster's office and stared at the empty glass case that once held the Sorting Hat. He had just reported its theft to the Dark Lord who was less then pleased. He needed to find the hat and whoever took it before Voldemort's arrival. But he didn't even know how long it had been missing as the case was normally covered under a thick blanket with silencing charms. The Dark Lord might have ordered him to keep the hat and bring it out every year at the start of opening feast to show how far they had come but he had never trusted the thing. It was the same reason he had permanently frozen all of the portraits on the wall. Well except for Dumbledore's, he had taken great pleasure in developing a way to torture it.

As he pondered what to do he felt the first alarms. While Hogwarts had never truly accepted him as Headmaster he was still in control of the schools wards. As such when they began to fall he was warned. Except they were falling from within!

He felt the entire school shake as its magic was drawn in on itself. Snape leapt from his desk and ran through a hidden door. A staircase led down to the very heart of Hogwarts; its ward stone. A coffin size slab etched with runes by the founders themselves. He barely needed a glance to see someone or something was siphoning off the schools magic. He reached out to stop it just as the magic reached the cascade point.

0-O-0

Since the return of Voldemort Hogsmeade had been a depressing place. More abandoned then inhabited now. Those that remained were awoken to the magical backlash from the castle. Glass shattered; charms and wards failed, butterbeer turned sour. As the backlash traveled further away homes hidden by magic were revealed again. No one had seen anything like it since the destruction of the Ministry of Magic.

0-O-0

Voldemort sat in the Headmaster office. He had been displeased when he was informed that Snape lost the Sorting Hat. It had been a symbol of how far they had come, where once a ratty hat was entrusted to know where to place students they now all fit comfortably into the single house of Slytherin. Its loss was a slap to his face. His anger had grown as he traveled. Now he was furious. Upon his arrival he had found Snapes body, what was left. It was charred and mangled on the floor in front of his desk. How had it happened? Were there traitors among the students or staff? Had the theft of the Sorting Hat been a ruse?

He had already been there hours. It was not as if he still had other important things to do, such as to discover why all the fairy specimens in his research lab had died at the same time not long ago. That mystery had seen several researchers' dead when they were unable to explain how the fairies magic had simple vanished.

Now he waited for Rookwood to inform him of his team's findings. He did not need to wait long; Rookwood entered and kneeled before him. "My lord, I believe I have a basic understanding of the events of this evening."

"Good. Then explain to me why Severus is dead and there is no magic left in Hogwarts." Voldemort said.

"We located a nearly destroyed room on the seventh floor. While badly damaged enough of the original structure remained for us to discover a complex ritual circle. As best as I can tell sir three people preformed this powerful ritual that drew on the magic of the school to fuel it. From Severus's condition I would guess he attempted to stop it at the schools ward stone but was unable to. His body was then expelled by the magic from the ward stone chamber and returned here." Rookwood said with his head still bowed.

"And what was this ritual to accomplish?" Voldemort asked.

"Time travel." Rookwood said.

"So they failed." Voldemort leaned back on the thrown like chair.

"It does not appear so sir. In fact from the remaining parts we found I believe they have a very good chance of succeeding." Rookwood said.

"If that was true then we are we still here? I imagine this was done by those who seek to oppose me." Voldemort said.

"Fairy runes my lord, they work in ways vastly different from our own magic as I am sure you know. More runes than we have ever found before. From what I was able to gather from them, and my own studies in the area of time, I believe that you are so powerful you are holding our current timeline in place." It was technically true and it complimented the Dark Lord, a win win. Rookwood felt the touch of his master's mind as he checked for honesty.

Voldemort frowned. While Rookwood was honest he made it sound as though it was his magical powers that held time rather then that prophecy. He also drew additional information, such as the function of the time travel employed. It did not take long for his vast intellect to put the last pieces together. If those who traveled back killed him in the past their time would die. But if those who went back died first the current time would remain. He and Potter were the linchpins of change. "What do you suggest we do then?"

Rookwood swallowed. "My lord. I believe I can recreate the ritual so that we may send one of our own back."

"Prepare what is needed, we will send everyone back." Voldemort said. This was an amazing opportunity. He could crush the muggles before they ever mounted a resistance. With both of them in the past he should be able to weave the future as he saw fit.

"We can't." Rookwood flinched, it was never a good thing to have to tell the Dark Lord.

"Can not? Why?" Voldemort had a dangerous hiss in his voice.

"It took the power of the school to send three people back however far they went. My preliminary calculations suggest sometime in the mid to early nineteen nineties. Also there is evidence that it was Harry Potter and his whores, the mudblood and blood traitor." Rookwood said, though he was sure his master had already taken that information from his mind.

Voldemort slammed his fist onto the desk. "Then we will provide more power! Enough to send back a dozen of my most loyal servants."

"Power is not the only requirement my lord, there is another problem sir. Quantum Quartz. I do not know how they secured such a large amount but there is no way we can match it. As you know a diluted form was used in time turners. With the destruction of the ministry it will be difficult to acquire enough to send back a single person. Also the person sent back will join with their past self, unlike when a time turner is used and two of the same person exist at the same time." Rookwood explained.

"Then we will get more of this quartz. I will not chance everything I have worked for." Voldemort said. He could not, would not lose everything now. His mind cycled back to the prophecy, was this it? The power?

"It's not that easy sir, Quantum Quartz is only found in trace amounts in a few places in the world. No new source has been discovered in centuries! No matter how many we send back the runes needed will be the same. If one of your servants can locate more then we can increase the number but for now scraping together enough for one person will be a difficult task." Rookwood said.

The only thing that held Voldemort's hand back from his wand was the knowledge that Rookwood was speaking honestly. If the former unspeakable said something was impossible then it most likely was. Not that Voldemort would just accept that. "Very well then, I will go myself."

True there were points in that time frame where he was a near helpless spirit but still with his knowledge of the future he could easily speed up his rebirth and take out Potter while he was still a student, even if he too processed knowledge of what was to come. It would be more difficult without taking his followers back with him but he was confident in his abilities.

"You can not sir, your, anchors." Rockwood said. Voldemort had to stay his hand from killing the man then and there; all others who had learned of his horucuxs had died. Only Rookwood's usefulness saved him. "To travel back you would need to take the same anchors you processed at the time you arrive, since two are gone now it is impossible, the ritual would fail and kill you, even with your anchors."

"Do you have a suggestion on who to send back then?" Voldemort asked him.

"Several. Because of the time period most of your most loyal followers will be incarcerated in Azkaban and useless for this mission. My first suggestion would have been Severus." Rockwood paused to glance at the remains still on the carpet. "Next would have been Lucius, but since he is as dead as Severus. His son Draco would have been a good choice."

"Would have been? What has happened?" Another loss was not what Voldemort wanted to hear of. Had Potter gotten him?

"He has disappeared sir. We know he was not one of those who traveled back but he may have been killed in the backlash. Or betrayed us." Rookwood suggested.

"Find him or his remains." Voldemort ordered, the loss of Draco was a concern as he knew many secrets.

"Yes sir. The problem of who to sends comes down to positioning. We are very limited in choices of someone who would be in a position to kill Potter in the time period they went to. I believe our only choice is." Rockwood paused. "Ron Weasley. He is our best hope. He is in a close position and the best we have that is not dead now or imprisoned then."

Voldemort considered it. The youngest Weasley son had little skill but was easily manipulated and had proven himself before when he hunted down the mudblood's parents. While he was loath to entrust the boy with something of this magnitude Rockwood was correct that the choices were limited. It was a gamble but unless Rookwood could narrow down the time range then the boy was their best chance. "I will consider it, will you need anything else?"

"As I said power. Before I would have suggested draining the Ministry of Magic. With that no longer an option I believe our last course is to use Durmstrang. And even then we will need sacrifices." Rookwood anticipated what his lord's next question would and quickly did the mental calculations.

"What kind?" Voldemort asked.

"Blood. I estimate it will take between eighty nine to a hundred magicals to properly blood bond the runes. With that many we should be able to provide more power then was available at Hogwarts and send our agent to a time before the others arrive. If successful they should be able to kill Potter and his whores before they arrive. With no bodies to combine with I believe they will simple die and we will be victories." Rookwood said. He had rounded the number up for safety. Better they arrive a few months too early then too late.

"I will let Bellatrix see to that." Voldemort said.

"Yes my lord." Rockwood said as he backed out of the room, never turning his back to his master. Voldemort himself stayed just long enough to order his followers to strip the castle. It was too exposed without wards. He also began to compose the story of what happened at Hogwarts. He'd blame the muggles of course.

Snape had kept far fewer items then Dumbledore and as a result it took less than an hour for the office to be packed and emptied. Once the last death eater had left Draco pulled Harry's invisibility cloak from himself. After the explosion he had been sure Potter had failed and crept into the Headmaster office to at least take his revenge on Snape, but Snape had been dead already. And now. There was still a chance. He needed to get to Durmstrang.

Draco made it as far as the edge of the forbidden forest before several important things came to mind, without the schools wards he could have apparated from the castle. Well he could have if Voldemort didn't have ways to track it and other magical travel. Draco cursed, he couldn't walk to Durmstrang; and muggle transportation was out of the question. Not only on principal but he lacked the needed identification. It appeared his only choice was to steal one of the schools brooms, slow though they were. Maybe someone had left their personal broom in the shed.

He turned to go check and froze. Standing a dozen feet from him was a reindeer. It watched him for a moment before it motioned with its head for him to climb on. Draco snorted in disgust at the animal; he remembered Lovegood had mentioned riding a flying reindeer to Hogwarts a few days before. Not that he believed her. "I suppose you can fly too can you?"

In response the reindeer stepped forward and off the ground. It hovered several inches above the snow and snorted at him.

"This has to be Lovegoods fault." Draco said as he climbed on to the strange creature. The things he'd do for Pansy.

0-O-0

Voldemort stood wrapped in a thick fur cloak. Durmstrang in the dead of winter was a miserable place even to him. Months of searching had turned up no more quartz. Rookwood had only been able to salvage enough to make a fist sized lump, though he assured the Dark Lord it would be enough. After a review of all his remaining followers Voldemort was forced to admit that the Weasley boy was the person who would be in the best position to kill Potter. No trace of Draco had ever been found.

The main hall of the school had been cleared out. The floor replaced with garnet slabs and etched with a complex rune array. Rookwood had cobbled it together from what remained of the fairy runes from Hogwarts and cannibalized several other human rituals to fill in the blank spots. Today was the day. The schools ward stone had been brought out and set in the circles to power the spell. A hundred and nineteen blood traitors were to be killed. Ron Weasley had gone through extensive training, provided by Voldemort himself and now stood ready to kill his former friends.

Draco crouched under the invisibility cloak in a corner. He would have one chance and he intended to take it. Draco had ridden Butterbeer, as he had taken to calling the reindeer because of its seeming addition to the magical drink, to Durmstrang and camped out with it for several weeks. Stealing what he needed and keeping watch. To his surprise he had actually been sad when he told Butterbeer that morning to get as far away from Durmstrang as he could so he wasn't caught if Draco failed. Of course even if he succeeded he wouldn't be coming back.

The sacrifices were brought in, their throats slit and the blood summoned from their bodies. A few Durmstrang students remained with push brooms and swept the blood into the runes until they were filled. Rookwood insisted magic could be used to summon the blood but not move it once it was out.

It took over two hours before Rookwood was satisfied. The floor was then carefully cleaned of the remaining blood before Ron proudly stepped forward and took his place in the center. Draco moved forward. One chance. It was all he would get.

He positioned himself between Ron and the Durmstrang ward stone. Hidden by the cloak he studied the creature he once called master and cursed the stupidity of his younger self. From his pocket he drew a highly volatile explosive potion and two sticks of muggle explosives. He didn't know what they were, he had just ordered the first soldier he had found to get to strongest explosives he could, thankfully the solider was from a more remote station and no one had noticed his glassy eyed look. Hopefully it would be enough.

Draco had paid close attention to Rookwood and studied his notes on the ritual. There would be a point of magical cascading from the ward stone. That was his chance. He would set off the explosives. It would stop the ritual and hopefully the magical backlash would kill Voldemort or at least injure him.

As they began Draco drew his wand and pulled out a picture. It had been taken at the end of seventh year. In it he and Pansy were laughing. One of the few times they had done so freely. _If Potter succeeds then none of this will ever happen. And if he fails, then maybe whatever powers there are will let me see you again._

The hair stood up on his neck as the magic gathered. This was it. He touched his wand to the explosives. "Pansy."

The explosion that claimed Durmstrang was comparable to the eruption of Mt. Saint Helens.

(A/N: Thank you for reading. This entire chapter was originally part of chapter one but I cut it to keep it more reasonable. Also a big thank you to Katzztar for helping me fix many of my mistakes in this chapter. Comments and critiques are welcome; flames will be force feed to a random minion.)


	3. Setting the Stage

Disclaimer: I own neither the Harry Potter world nor Santa, but if the poisoned cookies work that might change soon.

Tempest of the Fae

Chapter Three: Setting the Stage

0-O-0

Harry grabbed his head in pain and thrashed about as his muscles spasmed. When the fit finally passed he found that he had fallen from his bed and rolled across the room. For several minutes he lay on the floor as his mind slowly came back together. Weakly he lifted a hand and stared at his fingers. One by one he moved them and a smile spread across his face. It had worked. They were back.

When one has just traveled through time it is inadvisable to suddenly jump up and shout for joy, as Harry learned when he attempted it. A spike of pain lanced through his mind, he grabbed his head and waited for it to pass. Then began to take in his surroundings; he was in his room at Number Four, so after he got his letter. The only books lying around were first year so it was before second year; no bars on the windows so that meant it was the summer before first year.

That was unexpected. Hermione and Luna had reasoned Hogwarts would have enough magic to send them back towards the end of third year. The magic must have been a lot stronger than they thought. Still this gave them extra time; though some of their plans would have to wait now until their magic developed more; mainly the ones to deal with the Death Eaters. He was sure they could rework the plans.

Now to get to Luna's house since it was the safest. While the blood wards might exist Hermione was sure they'd have trouble stopping a particularly aggressive flobberworm. Luna had told them how to get in if she was away and that she would try to get back as soon as possible.

Harry grabbed his wand and walked down the stairs, he planned to catch the Knight Bus. Hermione had been adamant they not try to apparate until they were all together in case something went wrong. He almost made it to the door when Vernon caught sight of him. "Where do you think you're going boy? There's a list of chores for you to finish, have to get everything squared away before you leave for that freak school. You need to repay our kindness in taking you in."

"Stuff it you bloody wanker." To be fair Harry really couldn't be blamed for his anger, during the magical muggle civil war the Dursleys founded a radical group to wipe out all magical people and creatures. They'd led a new witch hunt and killed thousands, mostly muggles for perceived usages of magic.

Vernon struggled to rise from his chair. Spittle flying from his mouth. "How dare you! I'll tan the hide right off your back freaks be damned! Knew this would happen. I'll beat that unnaturalness's right out of you this time even if it kills you!"

Harry calmly drew and leveled his wand at his uncle just as he managed to haul himself out of the chair. "No you won't. I am not the same person you have tortured for the last decade. I am Harry James Potter, wizard. I wield magic you can not even begin to understand. You. Will. Sit!"

While he didn't put in magic into the command he jabbed his wand at his uncle in a show of force and Vernon collapsed back into his chair. "Good, now I am going to leave. You will not touch my things while I am away. With any luck when I come back it will be the last time we must see each other again."

"You, you see here now. If you step out that door don't bother coming back at all or, or I'll." Vernon flattered under his nephews gaze.

"Or you'll what?" Harry asked. "You will do nothing. You know they are watching you. Others like me. It's required when you live with muggles. In case they act, negatively. If you try to harm me I'll turn you into a pig, just like Hagrid should have finished doing to Dudley, then they'll arrive and we'll probably have a nice pork cook-out before I leave. And you, you'll just be one more unexplained disappearance. So just ignore me and soon enough I'll be gone."

He didn't wait to make sure his uncle understood. Harry knew if he did not leave right then he was liable to have an incident of accidental magic, as it was it took him a considerable effort to push down his magic. The last thing he needed was the ministry showing up to question him.

Harry from the house and went to the small park nearby. A quick glance assured him that no one was watching. He raised his wand and summoned the Knight Bus. The triple decker purple bus appeared with a bang. As soon as the doors opened Harry stepped on. There were different operators then when he had first taken the bus. A grizzled man glanced down at him. "Where ye going?"

"The Rookery, Ottery St. Catchpole." Harry said. He quickly handed over the coins for his trip. There was no mention of tooth brushes or hot cocoa this time.

Despite the speed at which the Knight Bus traveled Harry willed it to go faster. It made two stops before his. At each one an old woman disembarked at an impossibly slow speed. When they finally reached Ottery St. Catchpole Harry jumped down the steps and off the bus. He tore along the track that led to the Rookery; he could see its slightly slanted form ahead of him. But as he approached he slowed.

What if something went wrong and Luna didn't remember? He'd need a reason to be there. He could say he was looking for Nargles, which might work and be a good ice breaker. He had all but stopped along the path when the Rookery door banged open and Luna rushed out. She threw herself at Harry and tackled him to the ground. Her tiny arms had a death grip on him. "You're real, you're real."

Harry brought his arms up and held her just as tightly. A knot in his stomach loosened, she remembered. "I am, and so are you."

"I was so afraid that I had just imagined it all." Luna said against his chest.

"You didn't. Come on lets go inside." Harry suggested. Luna nodded but refused to release him. "Have you seen Hermione yet?"

Luna shook her head. "No, but I'm sure she made it back fine if we did."

"Right, her parent's actually watch what she does so it could be awhile for her to get here." Harry said.

As they stepped through the door Harry took the opportunity to examine Luna's home. The only time he had seen it before was shortly into the ill-fated horcrux hunt. Ron had left them and taken their remaining food and money with him. They had come back to Otter St. Catchpole to find him, only to step into a Death Eater attack against the Rookery.

Luna had run away from Hogwarts and the snatchers had tracked her down. Harry and Hermione had attacked them from behind. Still Mr. Lovegood had been killed and Luna, in a rage, had slaughtered the remaining snatchers. Harry and Hermione had helped the distraught girl as best they could. They'd convinced her to come with them and raided her camping supplies.

They had never gone back. The Rookery had been destroyed shortly afterwards.

The main floor was cluttered with all manner of strange things that appeared to have been collected from around the world. They moved to a worn couch and sat down. Luna curled up against Harry's side. She had always been affectionate, but rarely was she this needy. Being back must have opened up old wounds. He pulled her closer and stroked her hair. "Have you seen your father yet?"

"No, he had already left for the office before I arrived. It will be so strange to see him again. What if, what if he knows something is different?" Luna asked, sounding much more like the child she appeared to be rather than the woman Harry knew.

"I don't know." Harry said. "But we can figure it out when Hermione gets here. Worst case we tell him what happened sooner then we planned."

It was twenty tense minutes later when there was a knock at the door. Luna was off like a shot. By the time Harry got to the door Luna had Hermione on the ground in another death hug, one Hermione returned with full gusto. Harry joined them on the ground in a three way hug.

Hermione helped up a crying Luna, the younger girl refused to let her go. "We weren't worried that you wouldn't arrive, no, not at all."

"We all made it through safe." Hermione assured her with a quick kiss.

Though Harry had seen the same sight countless times before he suddenly felt a blush spread across his face, it matched the one on Luna and Hermione. All felt a level of embarrassment they hadn't felt in years; and since none wanted to think on it to much they hurried inside.

Once they were all on Luna's couch Hermione pulled out a notebook. "Alright clearly we've gone back further then we thought we would so we'll have to change some plans. First thing is to get Luna into our year."

"Can we do that?" Harry said. He looked at Luna who just shrugged.

"It's an old rule, 'hardship placement' a student can enter Hogwarts early if their parents requests it and can prove not having them attend would be a hardship. Of course no muggle born would ever know that." Hermione said in revulsion.

"But having me here for another year wouldn't be a hardship on daddy." Luna said.

"True but we just need your dad to say it would be. You mentioned sometimes while you were at Hogwarts your father took trips to look for new animals?" Hermione had long ago learned that questioning the strange animals Luna and her father believed in were a bad idea. So she had taken to calling them rare or new.

Harry didn't miss Luna's look. He reached over and took her hand. "You don't have to start with us if you don't want to. We'll understand if you'd rather stay with your father."

"No, this wasn't a good year." Luna said. At their confused looks she explained. "Do you remember how I told you that sometimes daddy was less here than others? He'll spend most of the next year at the office or working. I'd rather spend that time with both of you then alone."

Harry and Hermione wrapped their arms around her. "We'll never let you be alone again."

Luna clapped. "I have my own stalkers!"

"Luna, could you please not call us your stalkers?" Hermione said.

"Alright, I'll be your stalker then."

Hermione turned to Harry for help but he just smiled. "I can live with that."

"Wonderful! I'll go call daddy and have him set up an appointment with professor McGonagall." Luna said. She rushed to the fire place made the floo call to her father.

Moments later Mr. Lovegood stepped out. "Now what was so important moonbeam? Eh? Hello."

Harry and Hermione each gave a polite nod. "Hello Mr. Lovegood."

"Daddy these are my friend Hermione Granger and Harry Potter." Luna said as she took their arms.

To his credit Mr. Lovegood's eyes only flickered to Harrys scar for a moment. "A pleasure to meet both of you."

"Daddy, I was wondering if. Would you let me start Hogwarts a year early?" Luna asked her eyes wide with pleading.

"I'm sorry moonbeam but that's not my decision." Mr. Lovegood said.

"But you can request it. If me not attending would be a hardship." Luna said.

Mr. Lovegood frowned. "Luna dear you're never a hardship."

"I know. But if you tell the school that it is then they could let me attend. And you'd be able to go on those expeditions. The ones you say are too dangerous for me." Luna said with a pout, she remembered those years she had spent trying to convince her father his expeditions _weren't_ too dangerous for her.

He considered it. Honestly he was surprised that Luna had two friends over at all, he wasn't aware she even had two friends. That one of them seemed to be the famous Harry Potter was just more confusing. But he really couldn't refuse his daughter. Since her mother died it just wasn't in him. And he had been worried about her being alone so much but he could never seem to find enough time to spend with her even when he was home. "Is this really what you want Little Moon?"

"Yes daddy. I want to be in the same year as my friends." Luna said.

"What about Ginny? Isn't she still your friend?" Xeno asked.

Luna paused. The first time around at this point she would have still called Ginny a friend. But not after what they knew the girl would do. "We hardly see each other and have different interests. Really she only talks to me when she wants to complain about her brothers."

"I see. Well if you're sure. I'll see about having a professor come out and see what we can do." Xeno said.

"Thank you daddy!" Luna threw her arms around her father. Harry and Hermione knew the hug was more than just thanks. It was everything from the last few years they had gone through.

Xeno returned the hug and turned to them. "You'll both take care of her?"

"With our lives." Harry said.

"Good. Now why don't all of you go play." Xeno suggested. He watched the children head upstairs to Luna's room before he went back to the fire and floo called the Assistant Headmistress. "Hello?"

Professor McGonagall looked up from her desk. "Hello, can I help you?"

"Ah professor McGonagall. It's been some time." Xeno said.

She took a moment to study the face in the fire. "Xenophilius Lovegood, it has been some time. I do hope your transfiguration has improved?"

"Eh well no, hardly use it." He admitted, how could she make him feel guilty when he hadn't been a student in decades? "I am calling about my daughter. I wanted to set up a meeting to see if I could get her in a year early it would, um, be a hardship otherwise?"

"I see." The hardship rule was mostly used by purebloods who wanted a child out of the house quicker because they couldn't handle them; or to get a child into a certain year for one reason or another, normally to make certain social connections or for the sake of a betrothal contract. None of which she approved of. "Well that is an official reason. Unofficially?"

"Her friends are starting this year and she doesn't want to be parted from them. If she has to stay here alone most of the time until next summer, well I couldn't do that to her." Xeno admitted, happy to tell the truth.

Professor McGonagall sighed. Well best to take care of this now. They were already cutting it close. "I can come over around three this afternoon, would that be acceptable?"

"Yes that'll be wonderful. Thank you." Xeno said before he pulled his head out of the fire and stretched.

0-O-0

Albus Dumbledore sat in his office at Hogwarts, a lemon candy rested in his mouth. His plans had been moving along well and they were about to take the next step. Soon Harry Potter would arrive and be under his direct influence, a few kind words should see him viewed as a kindly grandfather figure.

He leaned back in his chair and smiled, the stage was set for Harry's first test. Hagrid had done wonderfully even if he didn't know it. Harry would be able to put the pieces together and they would lead him to a confrontation with Quirrell by the end of the school year.

Molly was set to _rescue _Harry on September first when he could not get onto the platform by himself. It would be a good introduction to a light family.

Of course his suggestion that Hagrid by the son of his friends a birthday present, perhaps an owl, had been genius. He had even placed a small compulsion to insure that Hagrid bought the proper owl, one Dumbledore had chosen for her intelligence and placed special charms upon. It wouldn't do to let Harry write to just anyone after all.

Dumbledore glanced at one of the tracking charms he had attached to Harrys owl and frowned, she seemed to have strayed a fair distance in her latest hunt. Then he smiled. If she kept to her current path she'd pass by Ottery St. Catchpole that evening. Perhaps he should visit the Weasley's, after all finding an injured owl and returning her to her owner was also a good way to meet someone and would indebt Harry to them from the start. But that would have to wait until the evening; right now he needed to meet with the new Minister for Magic. Apparently Fudge needed his help with something, again.

0-O-0

Harry Hermione and Luna entered her room. The walls were covered in drawings of strange creatures. Most of which Harry and Hermione recognized for Quibbler. Bright sunlight filtered in through partly closed curtains. They all moved to her bed and sat down. Hermione pulled out her notebook again. "Alright, getting Luna into our year is a good start. Now how do we deal with Voldemort?"

"Didn't most of the plans cover things years from now?" Harry asked as he reached over and absently played with Luna's hair.

"True, we didn't think we'd get back this far. But we can't let this extra time go to waste. Riddle will be possessing Quirrell this year." Hermione said.

"As long as that hasn't changed." Luna said.

"We can test it when we get to Hogwarts. We just need to see if Harrys scar hurts around him." Hermione said.

"And if Riddle is hitching a ride?" Harry asked, personally he voted for stunning him and feeding him to fluffy. Or maybe accidentally releasing Norbert into his office and sticking the dragon's teddy bear to the back of Quirrells turban.

"Well he's basically a wrath right now, but Quirrell willing allowed himself to be possessed so it would take a full and powerful exorcism and a lot of time to get him out of Quirrell, a few days at least. And that's provided we had enough power to preform it at all. Maybe. Harry at the end of the year when you fought Quirrell you said Voldemort's spirit passed through you?" Hermione asked as she chewed on her pen.

"Yeah, hurt too. Kind of like when he tried to possess me at the ministry." Harry said.

Hermione began to scribble. "Alright. This might work. I think he did try to possess you but whatever your mother did that protected you and burnt Quirrell prevented Riddle from managing to do so. What if this time we set a trap? If he tries again we can catch him."

"How?" Harry asked.

"Some kind of spirit binding medallion or totem." Luna suggested.

"That could work. If we can catch the active part of Riddle there won't be anything for Wormtail to find and revive." Hermione said.

Harry looked out the window towards the burrow. "What are we going to do about Wormtail?"

Hermione bit her lip, they'd agreed they would catch the rat if they could but they hadn't thought they would go back this far. "We'll catch him, but we need a good cover story. Otherwise they'll ask questions we can't answer."

Harry nodded. He had been looking forward to seeing Sirius again. But that would have to wait. They were still planning when Mr. Lovegood poked his head in and told them that professor McGonagall would come by that afternoon.

"That was quicker than I expected." Harry said.

"Well she probably wants to get it settled. I imagine it'll be a lot of work to add Luna to the class list. Speaking of, what do we do about houses?" Hermione asked. This was a perfect opportunity for the three of them to be placed in the same house.

"I'd prefer not to be in Ravenclaw again." Luna said. Harry wrapped a comforting arm around her. Both he and Hermione harbored some guilt over not helping Luna sooner.

"If we're in Gryffindor we have access to Scabers but we'll have to deal with Ron for seven years. And Slytherin is flat out." Harry said.

"So Hufflepuff?" Hermione said.

"Well Cedric and Susan will be in Hufflepuff, and they caused me the least amount of trouble over the years." Harry said. It could also be useful to have a connection to the head of the DMLE.

"Then it's settled, we'll all be in Hufflepuff." Hermione said. "Um, how do we convince the sorting hat to do that? And what if it tells Dumbledore what it sees in our heads?"

"It won't" Luna assured them. "I had a few talks with it before. It is forbidden to tell the Headmaster anything that isn't an immediate danger to the school. And you can ask to be put in a certain house. If you're insistent enough he'll agree."

"When did you have a chance to talk to the Sorting Hat?" Harry asked. They had only gotten it moments before they traveled back.

"Back when we were in school. I had to see the Headmaster a few times because I was caught out after curfew. Fawkes is nice but not much of a conversationalist." Luna explained.

"Good. Ok what next?" Hermione said as she jotted down notes.

"Maybe see about the blood wards on my aunt's place. If we can figure out how they work maybe we can figure out a way to get me out of there." Harry said.

"Definitely. We can head over after McGonagall talks to Luna." Hermione said.

"That'll work, if it's during the day my uncle will be at work and Dudley will be out terrorizing the neighborhood. So we'll only have to deal with my aunt. I just wish we could use magic." Harry said.

"Oh don't worry about that. They can only detect non-directed magic without an active trace." Hermione explained.

"Which means." Harry asked.

"Without having the trace on your wand they can only detect accidental magic, and the trace isn't applied until we reach Hogwarts. Remember what I said on the train when we first meet? I'd been practicing spells at home." Hermione explained.

"So we're free to do magic until we get to Hogwarts?" Harry said.

"Yup." Hermione said with a devilish grin.

"That'll be useful. Ok anything else?" Harry asked.

"Plenty. Since we're waiting for professor McGonagall right now though I suggest we check our occlumency. We have more secrets now than ever." Hermione suggested.

"Um, before that." Luna interrupted. "Hermione when you kissed me, I mean why did. Ug how do I say this?"

"Why were we all acting like, well kids?" Harry offered.

"Exactly! We've done a hell of a lot more than just kiss before." Luna said, she began to blush as she remembered just how much more.

"I think that was part of what Santa meant when he said the us that we are would join with the us that we were. Mentally we are in our late twenties. But physically were children. So while in our minds we are mature our bodies will still react as they would have if we hadn't come back." Hermione explained.

"Wonderful that means we'll have to go through puberty again." Harry said. Once had been hard enough.

Luna leaned over towards him. "At least this time you'll have two sexy ladies to help take care of all your needs."

Harrys face went scarlet and he tried to scrabble off the bed. "Luna!"

"Well at least this will be fun." Luna said.

"Just don't tease him to much Luna; we don't want him broken before we have a chance to break him in again." Hermione warned.

"Didn't someone say something about working on occlumency?" Harry asked. Damn it he used to be able to hold his own against them. He'd need to work at that and soon.

They all settled into comfortable positions on Luna's bed and let themselves slip into their minds. It had taken years of hard work and practice for Harry to come up with workable defenses for his mind. And it was mostly thanks to Luna and Hermione that he had been able to develop them at all.

It was actually Hermione who figured out a way to let Luna copy her own mindscape to them, as she took to occlumency with frightening ease. That had speed up the process considerably. Because of this they all had similar foundations for their mindscapes. A large forest. Though each had developed it from there on their own, they had taken more than a few ideas from the others though.

Harry entered his own mind, starting at the outer most layer. The shields composed of mental will and memories or in some cases a blank mind. Immediately he noticed a problem. Where once his mental shields had been strong and littered with traps they were now all but torn apart. Though not in any one area like an assault would leave it but completely twisted up everywhere.

Except, Harry examined his shields closer, they were still there but they were only ghostly images of what they once were, like a clear membrane. Well that would make putting them back in order easier at least. Harry passed through the ghostly remnants of his shields into his mindscape proper. Again it was just short of a disaster. The trees where just translucent images of a forest and his guardians were ghosts themselves.

In fact the only thing that seemed real was the house, a replica of Potter manor, at least from the outside. Harry quickly moved towards it and stepped inside. He had nicknamed this part of his mind the fun house as it was a maze of corridors and false rooms filled with traps.

As it turned out one of the most difficult parts of having a fully formed mindscape was memory, you had to remember how it was set up or it caused all kinds of problems. Thankfully after years of working on it Harry remembered all of the little details and only had to check it once a month or so.

Everything within the house seemed to still be in order. He debated a moment if he should started fixing the shields first or remaking the forest. Harry reasoned since the house was still alright he might as well work out from there.

0-O-0

Professor McGonagall stepped out of the floo into the Rookery. "Xenophilius."

"Hello professor, can I get you something to drink?" Mr. Lovegood offered.

"No, thank you. I just need to make sure your daughters magic is advanced enough to be able to cast spells without straining herself." The professor said.

"Of course she's upstairs with her friends, I'll just run up and get her." Xeno said. As he walked up to Luna's room he felt a pang of regret. He would miss her dearly while she was away. Though he had known she'd be going to Hogwarts he had thought he'd have another year. But by the same token he was thrilled she had friends. She had seemed to draw into herself ever since her mother's death and he had begun to worry about her.

He stopped at the open door to Luna's room and looked in; the three children all appeared to be asleep on Luna bed. He had always thought if he found a boy sleeping in Luna bed he'd finally be able to try out the angry father routine he had been rehearsing in the mirror but they looked so cute that instead he went back to his room and grabbed his camera to take a picture before he woke them.

With the future blackmail material safely stashed he gently shook Luna. "Moonbeam, it's time to wake up professor McGonagall is here to see you."

He was surprised when Luna's eyes snapped open and she leapt up to hug him. He wrapped his arms around her. "Is everything alright?"

"Just fine daddy. I'm just going to miss you but I really want to go with Harry and Hermione." Luna said. In truth while she had been able to control herself earlier fixing her mindscape and allowed her emotions to surface and she couldn't resist hugging her father who she had lost years before.

"That's fine dear, shall we wake them?" Xeno said.

"No, that's fine let them sleep. We were all so excited about me joining them we wore ourselves out." Luna said, really she just didn't want to have to explain to professor McGonagall how they suddenly all knew each other and were friends. They'd have to work that story out before they got to Hogwarts.

"Alright dear, shall we go see the professor then? She might even be your head of house." Xeno said.

"Lets, but I doubt it." Luna said.

"Whys that dear?" Xeno asked.

"Harry Hermione and I all plan to be in the same house." Luna informed him.

"Eh you know you might not all get to be in the same house." Xeno said, he hated to disappoint his daughter but felt she should be prepared in the likely event they weren't all in the same house.

"True and if we aren't we'll just have to be together between classes but I don't think it'll be a problem." Luna said.

"Yes, well good." Xeno said, he was surprised at her confidence.

They reached the first floor and Luna walked up to professor McGonagall. "Hello ma'am. I'm Luna Lovegood."

"Hello. I am professor McGonagall. I understand you wish to attend Hogwarts a year early?" She asked.

"Yes, though it's not really a year early. Since my birthday is October first it's really more like one month early." Luna said.

"Well then I don't anticipate any problems, still I am required to check. Please hold still." McGonagall cast a charm on her.

Luna recognized it as a charm to check magical cores and almost cursed out loud. Would traveling through time have affected her core? What would the results say? They should have thought of it. "What was that spell?"

"Just a charm to check your core. It seems fine, though a little bigger than a child of your age normal has its nothing to worry about." McGonagall assured her.

"So I can go to Hogwarts?" Luna asked.

"Yes, I will have a list of the needed items sent to you tomorrow. I look forward to seeing you when classes begin." McGonagall stood and left to add the extra name to the list for the coming year.

"Well shall we wake your friends now and give them the good news?" Xavier asked.

"I think so." Luna said as she hurried up to her room. Quickly she 'woke' both Harry and Hermione who were still repairing their minds and brought them up to date. A quick discussion also informed them that all their minds were in a similar state of disarray.

"Hermione, when do you need to be home by?" Harry said.

She checked the time. "In just over an hour why?"

"Do we have time to check the blood wards?" Harry asked.

0-O-0

Dumbledore returned from his meeting with Fudge to check the tracking charms on Harry's owl. If she as still near Ottery St. Catchpole he could arrange a small accident where the Weasley's could nurse her back to health, actually even if she wasn't near their home he could arrange it.

However when he entered his office all thoughts of Harrys owl vanished from his mind; several house elves were working to repair a large burned spot next to Fawkes perch. "What happened?"

"Apparently your bird had a nightmare and became so startled he woke up and set fire to the office." The Sorting Hat offered as an explanation.

Fawkes glared at the hat and made an almost threatening sound. The Sorting Hat was unconcerned. "I have been threatened with fire countless times; you'll have to do better than that."

Dumbledore stepped in before there could be a fight; he needed the Sorting Hat unharmed and functional. "Enough, Fawkes there is nothing to be embarrassed about, we all have nightmares from time to time."

He ignored the noise of protest Fawkes made and turned to help repair the damage.

0-O-0

(A/N: Comments and critiques are welcome; flames will be force feed to a random minion.)


	4. Wards, Parents, and an Owl in China

Disclaimer: I own neither the Harry Potter world nor Santa, but if the poisoned cookies work that might change soon.

Tempest of the Fae

Chapter Four: Wards, Parents, and an Owl in China

0-O-0

"Daddy, can I take the Knight Bus to Harry's house?" Luna asked her father as the three went downstairs.

"Hermione and I will escort her back afterwards." Harry added.

"Well, I suppose if you're both with her and she's back in an hour or so." Xeno said from the kitchen where he was continuously pulling a cat out of a large pot. Every time he sat it down it would immediately jump back in.

"Thank you daddy." Luna gave him a quick hug before they all left. She skipped along the lane ahead of the others as she hummed happily to herself. Harry half expected woodland creatures to come out and follow her along the dirt path.

When they reached the road Luna already had the Knight Bus waiting for them. They all climbed on and since Luna was the smallest she managed to share a chair with Harry. As they jerked back into motion Luna made sure to rub herself against Harry as much as possible, much to his embarrassment. He was forced to wrap his arms around her to keep her still, only after he did so did he wonder if that hadn't been her plan all along.

Not sure of exactly what wards might be monitoring number four they had the Knight Bus drop them off a few blocks away and walked the remaining distance. Harry glanced at the girls as they approached his house. "Remember, neither of you can kill them."

"Just a little, please?" Luna begged, she had so many ideas.

"Sorry but no, at least not now. Maybe next summer you can torment them a bit." Harry said.

Luna pouted but agreed. It just gave her another year to fine tune her plans and make sure they didn't overlap with Hermione's. Since Santa had first purposed sending them back each had made it a side project to find a way to deal with the Dursleys.

Before they actually reached number four Hermione cast notice me not charms and disillusionment charms on them. Each knew if it came down to an altercation they wouldn't be able to hold back. And since that would draw unwanted attention to them they would unfortunately have to wait to properly deal with Harrys relatives.

They were in luck as it appeared everyone was away from the house for the moment. It only took them a few minutes to locate the ward stone for the property. After all they did have a good deal of experience finding them. It was buried under his aunt's prized rosebushes. Not bothering to be gentle Luna tore them up and they each used a garden trowel to shift through the dirt.

Normally a wizarding home would need a keystone or anchor stone near the center of the property and ward stones along the edge to set the boundaries of the wards. With a space as small as the Dursleys house they could be combined, which would make them harder to penetrate. They had some experience taking down wards; Bill Weasley had taught them the basics. Of course normally ward stones weren't buried so deep.

Harry sat back and wiped his brow, the hole was clogged with roots and they had already fought their way two feet down. "Are you sure this is the spot Hermione?"

She waved her wand and a small ball of pale green light appeared over the hole, pulsing gently. "This is the spot."

"Right, just checking." Harry hefted the tool again and returned to the job of chopping through the mass of roots.

Luna hummed to herself as they worked; she seemed to take a great deal of pleasure in destroying his aunt's garden. When the hole became too deep for their small trowels Luna grabbed a shovel and started digging. However because her body was now much smaller than she was used to she over extended herself and fell backwards. Harry caught her and they both tumbled to the ground. "Ow."

"Sorry. Stupid small body; doesn't even have the fun bits yet." Luna grumbled as they got up. She took another try at the shovel and began to expand the hole. She cheered up a bit when she began jumping on the shovel to force it in deeper, even if she couldn't lift it then. During one of her more exuberant jumps the shovel hit the ward stone, three feet down; twice as deep as normal. The top of the stone was the size of a brick lying flat; a fine covering of roots obscured the runes cared into it.

Hermione cast a few charms on it. "I looped the wards monitoring the stone itself, we can move it now."

They started to dig around its edge of the stone. Harry reached in and tried to pull it out. The ward stone didn't budge. It took another ten minutes for them to dig out the stone enough to pull it free; the two foot tall stone was made of polished granite. It took the three of them together to lift it from the hole. Luna stuck a foot down the opening left by the stone; the top of the hole now came to above her head. "That's deep."

"Luna dear get out of there you're getting dirty." Hermione absently scolded.

"But I thought you liked when I was dirty? Besides I know how much to like deep things. Or things that go deep." Luna teased.

Hermione went scarlet. Harry took pity on her, though he was fighting his own blush. "Luna come on out or I'll have to burry you."

"In pudding?" Luna said. She wasn't joking either, Harry and Hermione had once come home and found that she had filled their largest bathtub with pudding. Still that had been a fun night.

"Sorry but not this time." Harry shook his head.

"Oh poo, fine." Luna held out her arms for Harry to help her out. He reached down and pulled her up, then took an extra minute to hold the girl against him. Despite all the changes he was pleased to note he still had the same feeling on love when he held her. He leaned down and quickly kissed her lips. He was also pleased to see her eyes widen and a blush spread down her neck. This could definitely be fun.

Hermione coughed to get their attention. "Luna, Harry, could you two check the stone to make sure I did the spell right?"

"We both know you did it right." Harry said.

"That's what I'm afraid of." Hermione said.

"Why?" They both asked.

Hermione gestured for them to take a look. Both cast a basic ward stone detection spell to see what they were dealing with. Neither was happy. Hermione's estimate of an angry flobberworm getting through was generous. A sleeping flobberworm could have rolled right in with how weak the ward was. "Shit, that's what I went through the Dursleys for?"

"It seems so." Hermione said.

"Have you disabled any parts that monitor offensive spells?" Luna asked.

"I have, why?" Hermione questioned her.

Instead of answering Luna began casting cutting curses at the remaining rosebushes. Harry waited until the bushes were reduced to a fine mulch, then pulled her into a hug. "It's ok Luna."

"But you went through everything for nothing!" Luna complained.

Harry could hear the tears in her voice and had to remind himself that physically she was a child and getting upset was how a child would react to a friend being hurt. "We can't change that, and if my life with them before was the payment for being with you and Hermione then I say I got the better end of the deal."

Luna took a deep breath to compose herself. "Alright Hermione what can we do about the blood wards?"

"We could destroy them now, but that would lead to questions. I think we should set them to fail on their own." Hermione said.

"When would they fail?"

"Hard to say, they're so weak." Hermione did the calculations in her head. "Late November I think."

"And we'll all be at Hogwarts by then so we won't be suspects." Harry smiled; he wondered what Dumbledore would make of that.

"Right." Hermione said.

"Plus by then our magic signatures will have faded." Luna added.

"True, another bonus. We also need to find a way to remove the trace, and maybe second wands. But we couldn't bring them to Hogwarts or else the trace would be applied to them too." Hermione said as worked on the problem in her head.

"Why not the ones at Potter Manor, we all found good matches." Harry suggested, it seemed most of his ancestors had contributed at least one wand to the family collection instead of being buried with them like most witches and wizards.

Hermione nodded her agreement. "Another reason to go and open the manor soon."

"Well tomorrow daddy is taking me shopping for my school supplies. So I can't go but both of you could." Luna said.

Harry threw and arm around Luna's shoulder. "Nope, we're all going together just like last time, minus the Death Eaters chasing us."

"Would you like some company tomorrow Luna? We could pick up our supplies and have Harry check his vaults." Hermione said. In their time by the end of '98 Voldemort had killed most of the goblins and seized control of most of the wizarding economy. Of course when the ministry was destroyed so was Gringotts. All of the lower vaults that survived were seized by the military.

"I'm sure daddy wouldn't mind." Luna said happily.

"Good, now help me set the wards to collapse so Harry doesn't have to come back here." Hermione said. After the ward stone had been altered and new runes added they reburied it where it had been and shoveled the dirt back on.

Hermione glanced down at her watch. "I need to head home, so you two want to come and meet my parents?"

"I do!" Luna shouted, waving her hand in the air. Then turned to Harry with her evil grin. "You want to come too right?"

"Are you sure that's a good idea, I mean maybe start them off with just Luna." Harry tried to think of a reasonable excuse to put off the meeting.

"Harry James Potter, are you honestly scared to meet my parents? After all the Death Eaters we've fought, after facing Riddle at least a dozen times?" Hermione said in mock anger.

"But they just wanted to kill me, and I mean your parents will probably want to kill me later too but I can't fight back against them!" Harry said.

Luna couldn't resist. "Don't you think they deserve the chance to meet the boy who's going to take their daughters virginity?"

"Luna!" Harry shouted.

"Luna don't scare him; as far as my parents will know for now you're both just friends." Hermione assured them.

"When do you plan to tell them?" Harry asked.

"Soon, I just want to." Hermione couldn't figure the best way to say what she was thinking.

"You want to enjoy just being with them before you drop something like time travel in their laps?" Harry offered.

"Yes."

"We understand." Luna assured her, then frowned. "That means I can't make out with you at your house yet."

"Maybe next summer." Hermione hugged the blond girl. "Let's clean up and go meet my parents shall we?"

"You promise to protect me if they try to kill me?" Harry asked.

"Yes Harry but honestly why would they want to kill you?" Hermione said, she already missed his old confidence, she'd have to think of a way to get that back.

"If they knew a tenth of the things we've done." Harry just shook his head; they'd kill him, adopt Luna and flee the country.

"But we haven't done anything yet, technically. I'll have to make a list so we can get back up to where we were before we came back." Hermione said.

Luna eyes lit up. "We can do it on the express! And do the Hogwarts broom cupboard challenge!"

"We'll have to wait a year or two for the express, we shouldn't waste our first time. There are a lot of rituals we could try, we'll need to see which ones are most useful." Harry said. He was sure there were a few he had read about.

"We'll have to research them." Hermione nodded as she cast cleaning charms on them to make sure they were presentable. Then once again disillusioned, they made their way to the street before dropping the charm and calling the Knight Bus. It took almost ten minutes for the bus to make the relatively short journey as several people were ahead of them.

When it arrived near Hermione's home they climbed off and took in the neighborhood. Harry had seen it before when he had come with her and Ron to erase her parent's memories and send them to what they thought was safety. It was a quiet place with large trees that hide the semiprivate yards. It looked like a wonderful place to live.

Hermione grabbed one of Harry's arms while Luna took the other. "Just in case you decide to try and run."

"Come on do you two really think I'd run?" Harry tried to sound insulted.

"No, you'd try to apparate and probably splice yourself." Hermione said.

Harry refused to admit that the thought had crossed his mind. The girls dragged Harry towards the front door. As they approached Harry could feel Hermione begin to shake with nervousness. He slipped his arm out of her and instead put it around her shoulder in a comforting gesture. "It'll be alright, none of it ever happened and we'll make sure it doesn't. No matter what it takes."

"Right." Hermione swallowed nervously and pulled out a key and unlocked it with her free hand. "Mum, Dad I'm home."

"There you are Hermione we were getting worried." Mrs. Granger said as she walked into the room, she stopped when she saw Harry and Luna, a look of surprise passed across her face.

"I did leave a note." Hermione pointed out.

"Well yes, it was just a surprise, that's all. Hello I'm Jean Granger." She said to the two new children that had followed her daughter in.

"It's nice to meet you, I'm Luna Lovegood." Luna cheerfully greeted her.

"Hello, I'm Harry Potter, it's a pleasure." Harry said trying to keep his voice even. Damn his younger body and its completely rational, irrational fear of Hermione's parents.

"It's nice to meet both of you as well. I take it you're the friends Hermione went to visit?" Jean asked.

"We are ma'am." Harry said.

"There's no need to be formal." Jean said with a hidden smile. "Will you two be staying for dinner?"

"I'm sorry but no, I promised Luna's father I'd escort her home soon." Harry said seeing his chance to escape.

"Oh well alright, I hope we see you both around again." Jean said.

"Oh don't worry I imagine we'll be back soon." Luna assured her as she followed Harry back out the front door; she fought not to laugh at his stiff walk. She caught a last look of Hermione shaking her head at Harry's actions.

As the front door closed behind them Harry let out a sigh of relief. Luna lost her battle to contain her laughter. "See, that wasn't so bad was it?"

"It was just her mum; I imagine the real trouble will be from her father." Harry said.

"Speaking of fathers come on you have to get me home. And then you can join us for dinner." Luna said as she locked her arm in Harrys and pulled him towards the street.

"Don't you want to spend time with your father?" Harry asked. He knew how much she had missed him; since Santa had arrived he had seen the look in her eyes. The chance to see him again was a major driving factor in Luna over the last few days in their time.

"That's what I'll be doing silly, spending time with him and you. Besides what do you think Hermione would do if she found out I let you go back to the Dursleys?" Luna raised her wand to summon the Knight Bus.

0-O-0

That evening Hermione parents settled in to watch a show on the television. Normal Hermione would take to a chair and either watch with them or go to her room and read. Tonight though she sat on the couch between them, something she hadn't done, even in that time line, for years. Both her parents had mildly startled looks, she stopped sitting between them at six claiming it was too childish. Hermione put an arm around both her parents and answered their unasked question. "Well I'll be going away to Hogwarts soon and I won't get to see either of you for a long time."

"We'll you're planning to come back at Christmas right? That isn't too long, just a few months. And you'll be busy learning all that magic stuff." Jean said, trying to reassure her daughter. She remembered how afraid she had been herself when she went to a boarding school.

"I know but I'll miss both of you. Even a day can seem like years sometimes." Hermione said.

Both her parents leaned in and hugged her. Her father was the first to pull away. "You know you could always not go, that was an option to. You could keep attending a normal school, besides what about those two friends of yours? Wouldn't you miss them?" Dan had been worried that she'd decide to try a boarding school someday, he wasn't sure if the one she planned to attend being magical was better or worse.

Hermione had to hide her smile, she remembered the first time she had boarded the Hogwarts Express. Her father had been a nervous wreck. Secretly her mother told her she hadn't seen him like that since she went into labor for Hermione. "But if I don't go to Hogwarts I can't stay with them, they're both going."

Dan blinked in surprise. "They're both going too? So they're magical as well?"

"Yes." Hermione said.

"Why don't you tell us about them? I don't remember seeing them before." Jean prompted.

It was odd for Hermione, being treated as a child again. "Well I meet them at the bookstore in Diagon Alley when we went to get my things; Luna invited me over today and I went; they're both a lot like me. Harry's cousin is a bully so he never made many friends. Luna is from a completely magical family and they don't send their children to any kind of school before Hogwarts so the only children she knows are from another magical family that lives nearby. They have a son Harrys age and a daughter Luna's."

"Oh? Did you meet them when you went to visit?" Jean was curious about a completely magic family. The idea of home schooling your children before Hogwarts seemed a bit ridiculous.

"Thankfully no, I don't think we'd get along well. The boy, Ron I think, is obsessed with a magical game called quidditch and the girl, Ginny, sounds like a groupie for Harry." Hermione said trying to hold in her disgust just talking about the youngest Weasleys.

"Harry, the kid you were with today has groupies?" Dan asked with skepticism.

"Harry's one of the most famous people in the magical world. Right up there with Merlin and Dumbledore. Not that he knew that until a few weeks ago when he got his letter. He was raised in a non-magical house just like ours." Hermione said.

"How can he be so famous but not know it?" Dan asked.

Hermione took a moment to compose her thoughts. She didn't want to frighten her parents but she couldn't, wouldn't lie to them about Voldemort's history. It would be easier for her later if they understood. "Witches and wizards are just like everyone else, some good, and some bad. The worst become dark lords. About ten years ago the worst dark lord in Britain's history was trying to take over, he called himself Voldemort. He got a bunch of people to follow him and named them Death Eaters; they were nothing more than terrorists. They scared people with hit and run attacks. For a long time it looked like Voldemort was going to win. Harry's parents were some of the few that openly spoke out against him. Voldemort tried to kill them a couple of times so they went into hiding under powerful magic. But Voldemort found them. On Halloween night he attacked, thankfully he was arrogant and went alone but he killed Harry's father, then his mother. Then tried to kill Harry."

"He wanted to send a message." Dan said. He didn't like where this story was going.

"Yes. There's a really bad spell called the killing curse, it's one of the few spells outlawed completely. If it touches you, you're dead, no chance to be saved. No counter curse. Everyone its ever hit has died. Except Harry. No one knows how or why but the spell only gave Harry a scar. And it somehow killed its caster instead. The worst dark lord in Britain's history died trying to kill a baby. So of course everyone was thrilled to be safe again."

"How do you know all that?" Jean asked. She didn't want to come out and say it but she thought Harry might have been making up stories to impress her daughter. Better to help Hermione come to that conclusion on her own though. She wouldn't be surprised if Hermione was extremely protective of her only friends.

"I actually got a book about it, then Harry told me some too. When he first went to Diagon Alley everyone was treating him like a prince and happy to tell him the story. Not that he likes the fame though." Hermione said.

"He doesn't like being treated like a prince?" Dan said.

"It annoys him; to Harry it's just a reminder that his parents are dead." Hermione said pointedly.

Her father had the decency to look embarrassed. "I would imagine so."

"Anyways there are a lot of girls who would just love to marry him for the fame. From what Luna said Ginny would be one of them, though if she ever did meet him she'd probably just squeak and run away." Hermione said.

"That's, well that's a lot to take in. What about Luna?" Jean said hoping there wasn't some unbelievable story to go along with her daughters other friend.

"Oh Luna's very nice, well Harry is too but he's also very shy. Luna is really out going and fun. Her dad runs a magazine in the magical world about possible undiscovered magical creatures. He goes on expeditions sometimes to look for them." Hermione paused and her voice became downcast. "Her mother died a little over a year ago. There was an accident, it was hard on Luna."

"I imagine it would be." Jean said. It was hard to imagine the perky little blond girl had gone through such a tragedy. "So they'll both be starting Hogwarts with you?"

"Yes, well technically only Harry should be in my year, Luna normally wouldn't start until next year but apparently you can request to attend a year early. That's why I went over today, she just found out she could attend this year. Oh before I forget Luna invited me for a sleep over tomorrow, may I go? We're also planning a hike the next day. Luna knows about all kinds of magical animals and she even says there are fairies near her house." Hermione said. She didn't mention their hike had nothing to do with the supposed fairies near Luna's home.

"I suppose that'd be alright." Jean said. "Would you mind if I borrowed that book about Harry?"

"Alright just remember whatever it says about the night his parents died is guess work and anything after that are just lies. The information from before is fairly accurate though." Hermione said.

0-O-0

The Knight Bus dropped Harry and Luna off in front of the Rookery. As they walked the well-worn path towards the squat tower Harry heard a noise he hadn't heard in almost a decade. Hedwig. Harry spun around and saw the white owl descending towards him; he stuck out his arm for her to land on. She made a pleased noise and he stroked her feather. "There you are, I've missed you so much."

Luna reached out a petted Hedwig as well. "You're a very intelligent owl aren't you? Finding Harry all the way out here."

"Hedwig this is Luna, one of my girlfriends." Harry wasn't sure if Hedwig was smart enough to understand what that meant yet. According to Luna the familiar bond would build over time and the animal companion would have greatly increased intelligence. How far along Hedwig was after the short time he'd had her this time around Harry couldn't be sure.

Hedwig turned her head to examine Luna then back to Harry and gave him a, well, owlish look. Harry pulled out a few of the owl treats he'd stashed in his pocket that morning. "For now that just means if she needs you to deliver a letter I'd like you to do so alright?"

Hedwig bobbed her head once before she snapped up a treat. For the first time Harry wondered if she wasn't already as smart as some people. Harry shook his head and followed Luna through the front door. "Daddy, we're back."

"Excellent, did you have a good time?" Xeno asked.

"Oh yes, Harry took wonderful care of me and made sure to bring me back just like you asked." Luna said.

"Good, Harry will you be staying for dinner?" Xeno asked.

"Well considering Luna ordered me to I probably should." Harry said.

"Yes, it's best to just listen to her isn't it?" Xeno nodded his head in understanding.

Harry was a bit surprised when they all set down at the table and the food was, well normal. Apparently Luna's father had basic cooking skills, though he supposed it made sense, someone had to cook after all and Luna would have only made sweets if she could have gotten away with it. While Hedwig didn't eat she perched herself on an empty chair and watched them all carefully. Xeno took to making faces at her from time to time, Hedwig managed to mimic a few of them. As they were finishing Harry noticed Luna had the look she normally got when she was planning something, interesting. Such as releasing swear toads in Serpents Alley. "Daddy? Would it be alright if Harry spent the night?"

"Well, eh, aren't you both a bit young for that sort of thing?" Xeno looked decidedly uncomfortable, a look fully matched by Harry.

"Of course we are but that's why you don't need to worry." Luna said.

"Oh yes, I suppose that's true. In that case there shouldn't be any problem with Harry spending the night, just grab on of the extra beds from the basement." Xeno said, relief clearly painted on his face, along with a bit of jam.

After dinner Harry followed Luna into the basement, it was just as messy as it had been in the future. Luna took her time, running her hands along many of the boxes and odd pieces of furniture. Since Harry was not trying to comfort a distressed Luna this time around he also took a few minutes to examine the stacks. There was camping equipment of all type, muggle and magical. Along with an assortment of questionable items. The giant fish with a tentacle protruding from its mouth was a bit disturbing.

"I think the blue one would be the best." Luna said.

Harry tore his attention away from the disturbing fish to find Luna standing next to several roll away beds; each one with its own bright color. She reached out and grasped the blue one before she pulled. It barely moved. Harry took the other side and they tried again. The bed began to move with a quiet scraping noise. Each effort only moved the bed another inch or so. Suddenly it popped free and they tumbled backwards as boxes cascaded down on them.

Luna groaned as she struggled to free herself from a size forty two flower print dress. "Harry? You ok?"

"Not really, you cute little butt is pretty boney." Harry said from under her.

"Opps, and I thought you like my butt." Luna managed to roll off him.

Harry grunted as he sat up. "To play with? Yes. To have stabbed into my stomach? Not as much. Eh Luna? I think I know why it was stuck."

"Why would that be?" Luna asked as she tried to look like she hadn't just been checking her own posterior to see if it really was noticeably boney.

"It's wearing boots." Harry point toward the two back wheels, each wheel was in a tiny yellow rain boot.

"So this is where those got to, daddy must have been the last person to put this bed up." Luna said with a shake of her head. She reached down and removed the footwear from the beds wheels.

"He puts boots on beds?" Harry asked.

"No, but sometimes when he has to move furniture he gets lazy and just animates it. For some reason whenever he does that the furniture has a tendency to steal clothes. I had to forbid him from rearranging my room after second year because my comfy chair raided my knickers. It took me a week to pull them all back out." Luna said as she tossed the shoes back into the unsteady pile of objects.

Together they each took an end of the bed and maneuver it up the stairs. "Is that why whenever we redecorated you'd charm all the furniture to move on its one?"

"Yup."

"And I thought you just like riding the couch around." Harry said.

"Well there was that too." Luna admitted.

It took them almost twenty minutes to make it up all the stairs to Luna's room. "Remind me again why we didn't levitate this thing up here?"

"Because you didn't think of it until now? You can get ready for bed; I need to do something real quick. If you need something to wear check the bottom of my dresser." Luna said before she left her room.

When Luna returned to her room she found that Harry had already set up the bed and was under the blanket. "Awe snorckark, I was hoping to jump you while you were still getting ready."

"I figured so I was fast, thanks for the clothes by the way Luna but why do you have a drawer filled with boxers?" Harry asked.

"Oh I went through a phase where I preferred boxers to knickers, and daddy said it was unseemly for a girl my age not to wear some kind of undergarments. Actually I think this was around that time." Luna pulled up her dress to check, she was wearing a pair of purple boxers. "Yup. Why are you wearing a shirt to bed?"

Harry thought he had pulled the covers up enough to hide his shirt but apparently Luna could see it. "Eh, no reason."

"Harry James Potter I know when you're lying." Luna said, how a ten year old managed to be so intimidating Harry would never know.

"Well it's just, you know. The Dursleys never exactly feed me right and I haven't started quidditch yet so." Harry trailed off.

"So you're a scrawny kid again. Look at me I'm as flat as a piece of parchment. If I cut my hair I could pass for a boy. And unfortunately it'll probably be a few years before either of us gets to drool over the others body. I love you for you not what you look like." Luna finished with a brilliant smile that made Harrys heart flutter.

"I think you were channeling Hermione there that sounded very mature." Harry said.

"Thanks, I've been practicing in front of the mirror." Luna said as she began to search for something to wear to bed. "Oh I had forgotten all about this."

Harry rolled over when Luna pulled her dress over her head. Damn his younger body he'd seen that a few thousand times before but now he was too embarrassed to watch her. Luna's giggles certainly weren't helping matters either. "Alright Harry you can roll back over I'm decent."

When he did Harry found Luna wearing a pair of bright yellow footie pajamas with orange stripes, it came equipped with a hood with cat ears and a tail that swished back and forth seemingly on its own. He wondered what charm had been used on it. Before he could comment on it though Xeno walked into the room. "Ah all ready for bed good. Now not that I think I need to say it but I'd hate for all that practice to go to waste. I expect you to stay in your own bed all night young man."

"Yes sir." Harry said.

"Good, now be honest was I intimidating?" Xeno asked.

"Very sir." Harry answered.

"Excellent! Who says I need acting lessons?" Xeno was very pleased that his hard work had paid off.

"Aunt Billable I believe." Said Luna.

"Really?"

"No, I don't think I even have an Aunt Billable do I?" Luna asked with a finger pressed to her chin in thought.

"Hm not to my knowledge though you know how bad I am about keeping up with family. Well good night both of you." Xeno waved his wand and the lights flickered out. After a few minutes Harry realized someone, most likely Luna, had painted luminous stars on the ceiling. He watched as they slowly shifted, briefly forming pictures before they broke apart again.

"I had daddy do the charm work for them." Luna said next to Harry. He jumped at her sudden appearance; he hadn't heard her get up.

"It's amazing."

"I think so." Luna pulled back the covers on Harry's bed and climbed in.

"Luna!" Harry hissed, his eyes darted towards the door. "What are you doing?"

"I would think that was obvious, I'm getting into bed with you." Luna said and she curled against him.

"What if your dad comes back in to check?" Harry said.

"Well he only told you to stay in your bed, so since you couldn't get in mine I joined you instead. Why do you think I picked the blue bed? It's the only one with enough room for both of us. Besides he never said I had to stay in my bed." Luna pointed out; when she felt Harry remain tense she pulled back a little. "Relax; even if he finds us together he wouldn't be mad. That'd only happen if you hurt me so you're perfectly safe."

"If you say so." Harry said, every thought in his head urged him to run before Mr. Lovegood magically appeared to get him.

"So do you want to know what I did earlier?" Luna asked in a teasing voice.

"What?"

"Well I may have made a slight adjustment to our ward stone and added that bewildering charm Hermione came up with to it." Luna said quiet pleased with herself.

"The one she described as talking to you for an hour when you don't want to cooperate?" Harry asked.

"Yup that's the one." Luna said.

Harry smiled. He had no idea where Hermione had come up with the charm but it could be attached to ward stones and would confuse any spying magic you could think of from listening charms to tracking. It had to be applied to a ward stone though to anchor it and it was only temporary, fading after a time. Each subsequent application would wear off faster than the last. Still it was amazing while it lasted as the effects it had on spells was almost random. Hermione had a huge notebook listing various factors that altered the charms reactions. Sometimes a listening charm would remain silent other times it would pick up muggle radio stations. It depended on so many factors the effect was impossible to predict, everything from the type of stone used, age of the wards, number and type to who cast the spying magic. "Do you think anyone is spying on you or your dad?"

"I'm more worried about you; we forgot to check you for charms earlier. We'll have to get Hermione to do it tomorrow. We're both pants at it." Luna said then yawned.

"Right, thanks for thinking of me, good night, I love you." Harry leaned forward a kissed her.

"I love you too Harry." Luna mummbeled into his chest.

Hedwig from her perch on Luna's dresser gave a mournfully bark. Harry laughed, Merlin he had missed her. "I love you too Hedwig."

0-O-0

Albus Dumbledore was a man who always had a plan, a backup plan and several fail-safe's. It was rare for an event to completely stump him or ruin a plan. But that seemed to be exactly what had happened. Once again he checked the tracking charm on Harry's owl and once again he received the same results. Somewhere over the Hebei Province in China. Of course the further away the charm was the less accurate it became but he had cast it himself and anchored both ends securely. It should have been good across the continent. Which either meant someone had tampered with his charm or that the owl really was in China.

A quick glance at the instruments that monitored Number Four showed nothing amiss. The ward to alter him if Harry did not return home each night had not sounded so he should be safely behind the blood wards. Had he bothered to check he would have seen the tracking charm on Harry now showed him somewhere in Canada.

But he did not, to busy pondering how an owl made it all the way to China in such a short amount of time. And hoping it wasn't on someone's menu, he had heard disturbing tales about what people in that part of the world ate.

0-O-0

(A/N: Thank you for reading. Comments and critiques are welcome; flames will be force feed to a random minion. Also a big thank you to my beta Katzztar, thank you for all your work.)


	5. Into the Alley

Disclaimer: I own neither the Harry Potter world nor Santa, but if the poisoned cookies work that might change soon.

Tempest of the Fae

Chapter Five: Into the Alley

0-O-0

Harry wasn't sure what woke him at first, then he felt Luna shake lightly in his arms. He heard a slight sniff and felt a wet spot on his chest. "Luna?"

"Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you." It was clear to Harry by her voice that she had been crying for some time.

He shifted, bringing Luna's head closer to his own. "What's wrong?"

Luna swiped at her eyes and buried her head under his chin. "It's nothing."

"Hey remember I'm the only one who gets to says it's nothing when it's clearly a lie." Harry tried to tease her enough to bring her back up. It worked, slightly.

"No, you get to say you're fine when you're clearly hurt, this is different."

"How so? Come on Luna you know you can tell me anything, heck you'll tell me things I never wanted to know." Harry shuddered as he remembered several of the girl talks Luna and Hermione had forced him to sit through.

"It's just, if we'd come back just a bit further, we could have, could have." Luna sobbed. Harry pulled her closer.

"If we had come back a little further we could have saved your mother too?" He felt Luna nod against him. He really couldn't imagine what it felt like for her, to have been so close to having both her parents back. "I'm sorry, if there was anything I could do to."

"Harry, do you remember what Hermione and I told you about upset girls?" Luna asked.

"Shut up and listen, don't try to fix it." Harry repeated. They'd forced that lesson into him, not that he liked it.

"That's right."

"But I want to do everything I can to help both of you."

"Well unless you know another method of time travel the most you can do is hold me." Luna said with fresh tears in her eyes.

"Right." Harry began to rub Luna's back as she cried against him. It was a long and unpleasant night.

0-O-0

"Would you like us to drop you off at Luna's house on our way to the office?" Jean asked Hermione at breakfast.

"Thank you but I don't think you'd have time, Luna doesn't actually live around here." Hermione put her dish into the sink, for some odd reason after becoming of age and being able to do magic all the time she found herself enjoying chores more without it.

"Then how will you meet her? Is her father bringing her around?" Dan asked looking up from his eggs.

"I'll take the Knight Bus."

"The what?"

"A magic triple decker bus that comes when you call and takes you directly to your destination, so I suppose it's really more of a taxi then a bus. It can get anywhere in Britain in about ten minutes." Hermione tried to explain in such a way that her parents would feel comfortable about her using the Knight Bus.

"Ten minutes, anywhere?" Dan asked skeptically, forget turning their table into a pig if someone wanted to prove magic was really this bus sounded like the way to go.

"Yes, we can all take it the next time we plan a day trip, it'll save loads of time on travel." Hermione said, ideas of some of their more local summer trips over the next few years filtered across her mind. She should have thought of using the Knight Bus back then.

"Well alright then, have a good time and be back for supper." Jean said.

"I will mum, love you, love you too dad!" Hermione grabbed her old school backpack and headed towards the door. Once out front she stopped and yawned, she had forgotten how much she disliked sleeping alone. She'd only managed to fall asleep after she'd gotten a long pillow from the guest bedroom and cuddled against it.

0-O-0

The ride to Luna's house was quick, thanks in part to a detour through a large cow pasture. The driver had made an offhanded comment about it at least not being sheep. Hermione stepped off the bus at the end of the lane to Luna's home; she hurried along to see her two lovers. She found them just finishing breakfast.

Mr. Lovegood looked up from his bowl of porridge as Hermione walked in. "Ah excellent. All set to go with us to the Alley?"

"Yes Mr. Lovegood." Hermione said as she made a grab for the peeled banana near Luna's plate.

Luna was too quick though and moved it out of Hermione's reach by stuffing the entire fruit into her mouth. Her cheeks ballooned out and she hastily chewed the last of her breakfast. When she finished she stuck her tongue out at Hermione. "Actually daddy I need to talk to Harry and Hermione before we leave."

"Ah excellent, I hate having to rush porridge." Xeno took the bottle of tabasco sauce and poured a generous helping onto his porridge as the children went up to Luna's room.

As soon as Luna's door closed she said. "We've already made a big mistake; we didn't think to check ourselves for spells."

Hermione resisted the urge to slap her head. "How did we forget that? We were in the habit of doing it before we came back."

"Well while we are mature for children of our age we don't appear to be as mature as we were." Luna said.

"Alright, we'll have to work on that. For now let's check ourselves. Are you two clean?" Hermione asked.

Harry shook his head. "We didn't bother to check, you know we're both bullocks at those kinds of detection spells."

"I put up some extra wards though to throw off any tracking charms." Luna offered.

"Good, since Luna and I are probably clean I'll check us first then we'll see how bad Harry is." Hermione raised her wand and quickly checked herself and Luna, both came up with no charms. As expected though several registered when she repeated the spell on Harry. The sheer number of charms on him was mind boggling.

"How bad is it?" The number of lights that had appeared around him was not comforting.

"It's … not good. There are several tracking charms, a low powered muggle repelling charm, not enough to keep people away but enough to make people feel uncomfortable around you." Hermione said as she searched through the charms working out what each one was supposed to do.

"What's the point of that?" Harry asked.

"Maybe to make sure you didn't make friends?" Luna offered.

Hermione frowned and poked on of the lights with her wand. "Now this isn't right."

"What isn't?"

"Hang on." Hermione performed another spell, this one designed to take a basic reading of a person's magical power. It had fallen out of use when the purebloods realized it didn't support their ideas. It didn't disprove them either but it put muggle-borns closer in terms of power and they didn't like that idea. "Luna check this would you?"

Luna preformed the same spell. "This can't be right."

"That's what I thought; there must be a block on him."

"Would one of you explain what's going on?" Harry asked, unless he forced himself into the conversation Hermione and Luna could hold an entire discussion in half sentences and he would have no idea what was happening.

"Your magic reading is one ninety." Hermione said.

"That's, a bit low." Harry said with a frown.

"Well not for a normal wizard at your age but for you it is. Considering that your power was almost a thousand when you reached majority you should be around three twenty, three thirty right now." Hermione said.

When a student started Hogwarts their magical power was normally a third of what they would achieve by the time they came of age. When they reached fourth year they would be almost two thirds of their full power. When Hermione had first learned the spell and tried it on Harry his power was nine hundred and ninety seven. Dumbledore tested just twenty points lower than that when he left Hogwarts, and it was rumored that Voldemort was only a few points above a thousand. Their best guess was Merlin himself was around twelve hundred.

"So my powers blocked to about two thirds of what it should be." Harry said. He really shouldn't have been surprised.

"Correct, what I want to know is when the block was removed." Hermione said.

"Maybe it wasn't, maybe Harry broke it." Luna suggested. "Magic blocks have been known to fail at times of emotional stress or danger."

"Well that narrows it down to my entire time at Hogwarts. Can you remove the block?" Harry asked crankily.

"Maybe, I'd need to check some of the books at Potter Manor so it'll have to wait until tomorrow. I can take care of the tracking and other charms." Hermione already knew how to easily remove most, only a few were even active, the majority seemed to be set to only matter if another one they were tied to failed or was removed. So she'd start at the back on the line and worked forward.

Together the girls made quick work of most of the charms. Though there were a few that were considerably more powerful than the others. A tracking charm placed on the back of Harrys head and a charm for monitoring the general wellness of a person located at the base of his spine.

"We'll have to wait to remove these last two. They're the most powerful and seem to be tied back to something else on Dumbledore's end. I'll need to reattach them to someone else so they don't trip any alarms." Hermione pocketed her wand and stretched, she wondered if she was still young enough to get away with a nap. Preferably with at least one other person.

"I need to go grab my things from the Dursleys still, provided they haven't just burned them. Could you attach the charms to Dudley?" Harry asked as they returned downstairs.

"Shouldn't be a problem."

"Ah is everyone ready?" Xeno inquired; when they nodded he motioned them towards the fireplace. "Has Luna explained how to floo?"

"Yes sir."

"Excellent, then let us be on our way." Trusting Luna to see her friends through if they had problems, Xeno was the first to step through the fire and arrive at the Leaky Cauldron. They all arrived without incident and proceeded into the Alley. Their plan was to finish Luna's shopping then convince Xeno to let them explore the Alley for the rest of the day. Luna assured them it wouldn't be difficult to do as he had allowed her to roam the alley by herself in the original timeline at a similar age.

Their first stop was Mr. Ollivanders for Luna's wand. When they entered the dark ship they found the aged wand maker standing in a corner, his head cocked, watching them curiously. He seemed, confused. "Mr. Potter, Miss Granger, are your wands no longer working for you?"

"No sir our wands are fine, we came with a friend Luna." Hermione nudged Luna forward to direct attention away from them.

"I will not ask how you know your wands still suit you. However you are both, different, then when you first came here. Should you find your wand fighting you please come back so that you can be refitted. So strange though, so different." Mr. Ollivander mumbled to himself. Then he seemed to realize he had a customer and turned his attention to Luna.

His magic tape measure jumped out of his pocket and got to work measuring her wand arm. Luna giggled as it tickled her. The wand maker nodded as he watched. "Yes yes, something strong I think. Let's see let's see, twelve and a half inches, black oak, dragon heart string. Give it a good swish."

Luna did, there was a rush of air and her father was wearing a dress. Mr. Lovegood looked down at himself. "I don't remember wearing this out. Although I do like the color and it breathes like a dream. Why can't I ever find robes like this?"

"Not quite." Mr. Ollivander took the wand and returned Xeno's clothes to normal; much to the other man's displeasure. He quietly mentioned Madam Malkin's being their next stop. "Nine inches, heartwood, dragon heart string."

This time a dozen wand boxes jumped off the shelf and hit the wand maker. He hardly seemed fazed by it; in fact he seemed almost pleased. "Well that hasn't happened it years. Maybe, why not. Fourteen inches, Cherry wood, phoenix feather."

In perhaps the most disturbing sight of the day a low table was transfigured into a wooden puppet. It looked around the room slowly before its mouth opened. "Papa, papa, do you love me now, papa?"

Three wands came up to vanish the disturbing creature but before they could the puppet sprinted across the room and out into the alley. Calmly Mr. Ollivander walked to the door, looked out, then closed it and took the wand from Luna. "I believe we should all agree not to speak of that again."

The others nodded their consent. More wands yielded more unexpected but unsatisfactory results, shoes being changed into tissue boxes, a mysterious roar that sent several shoppers in the alley running for cover, a turtle that walked around on the ceiling, on two separate occasions Mr. Ollivanders robes began to flash brilliant colors that would have made Dumbledore jealous.

Finally they found one that was not only acceptable but a perfect fit for Luna. "Ten inches, honeysuckle vine wood and unicorn hair."

When Luna swished it there was a warm breeze throughout the shop and Luna's robes turned tie dyed. "This one."

"It would seem so, excellent." Mr. Ollivander motioned around the shop with his own wand to repair any lingering damage and set it right again. Including Luna's robes, much to her displeasure.

The rest of their errands went quick and without incident, though only the promise that they would return later let them get Hermione out of Flourish and Blotts in under an hour. Luna was also right when she said it would be no problem with her father if they remained at the alley for the day. He only gave them a warning not to go into Knockturn Alley unless they were very very careful.

Their first stop was Gringotts to find out exactly what shape Harrys finances were in. Because the bank was filled with last minute shoppers they were forced to wait several minutes until a teller was free. "Yes?"

"Hello." Harry gave a polite nod to the goblin. "I would like to speak with whoever is responsible for my accounts."

"And you are?" The teller asked snidely, still managing to appear uninterred

"Harry Potter." Harry said.

"Key?"

"To my knowledge I have never been in possession of my key, which is one of the issues I would like to discuss with someone." Harry had to work to keep his tone polite.

The teller sneered at him. "Of course Mr. _Potter_. If you and your, guests, would follow me."

Harry knew goblins weren't exactly friendly but this one seemed down right foul. Hermione and Luna shrugged at his unasked question and they followed the teller back into a set of offices. Outside each door was a set of plagues with names engraved onto them. Some they recognized, Malfoy, Bones, Black. But most were new to them. The teller stopped outside a door with Potter as the first listed name. A sharp knock saw them bid entrance.

The office was plush, if you ignored the left wall which was covered in severed hands. Since each looked fresh they guessed the hands were under some type of preservation spell. The goblin behind the desk looked bored as they approached him. "I am Crackjaw, account manager for the Potter estate. I take it you are the one claiming to be Mr. Potter?"

"Yes, I'm Harry Potter and these are…" Harry was cut by Crackjaw's raised hand.

"I do not care who your companions are until we have established that you are indeed Mr. Potter. Your key?" Crackjaw held out his hand impatiently.

"I've never had it." Harry explained.

Crackjaw lifted a piece of parchment. "Of the twelve hundred and ninety eight people who have come and claimed relations to the Potters you are the one hundred and thirty fourth to claim to have never had their key. Three hundred and twenty one claimed to have lost it and five hundred and forty eight claimed it was stolen. The others offered an array of excuses or fake keys. Because the Potter accounts are one of our more vulnerable accounts we have taken extra precautions."

A box on the desk popped opened; Crackjaw reached in and removed a golden bracelet. "This is one of our, most forceful, security options. If you are not Harry Potter your hand will be cut off, you can see some of the others now adorning my wall. No magic can fool it, even if you were to honestly believe yourself to be Harry Potter this will see through the deception and remove your hand. At which point you and your companions are forfeit to us."

"That's nice." Harry wondered how many people Crackjaw had scared off with this little show, or how many were stupid enough to continue on. Well except for him. Harry stuck out his arm. "But since I am me that doesn't really matter."

"Confidence will not help you." Crackjaw fitted the bracelet around Harry's wrist and tapped it. Nothing happened. Crackjaw frowned and tapped it again. Still nothing. "That has not happened before."

"So do you believe that I am Harry Potter now?" Harry asked.

Crackjaw growled before he snatched back the bracelet and removed a stone bowl and knife from his desk. "Perhaps. Please place a drop of blood into the bowl."

Harry accepted the knife from Crackjaw and nicked his finger, he squeezed and a drop of blood that fell into the bowl. Before he could do anything Crackjaw's hand shot out and grabbed his hand, he held the cut finger near his face examining it. "Very well."

"What was that?" Harry demanded as he pulled his hand back.

"You would not have been the first person to attempt to offer someone else's blood as their own. This is part of the reason the bracelet is used, it tells not only of the blood the flows through you but the magic as well. There is no way to fake it throughout your body. It is also not a legal means of proving ones identity, just disproving it. We use this loophole to deal with accounts that have had several fraudulent attempts made to access them." Crackjaw explained as he watched a black quill scratch something out in Harry's blood. "Very well. I apologize for my earlier attitude Mr. Potter however when you have dealt with so many frauds it tends to become an annoying interruption to the day."

"That is alright, I would rather you be rude and my vaults secure." Harry said.

Crackjaw nodded. "Now who are your companions?"

"Hermione Granger and Luna Lovegood. They have my full confidence for anything we speak of here." Harry said.

"That is your choice. Now what may Gringotts assist you with today?" Crackjaw leaned back in his chair.

"Several things, as I said I have never had my key, in fact I didn't even know about the magical world until just a few weeks ago. I do not know who has my key and would like any and all keys to any vaults I have withdrawn and a new one issued for myself." Harry said.

"That is easy to do, however we will only be able to reissue your key, not that of your magical guardian." Crackjaw explained picking up the parchment he would need.

"And who would that be?" Harry asked, though he already knew.

"Albus Dumbledore."

"How is that possible? I didn't even know he existed until I received my Hogwarts letter and as far as I know have never met him." Harry asked.

"I am not sure; the ministry is responsible for appointing guardians." Crackjaw explained. "However if you wished you do have the power to place a restriction onto your guardians access to your account since he is not a blood relative."

"And that means?"

"He would have to come and approve all transactions made with his key in person, as it is now anyone who presents the key has the same access."

"Do it please, and can you also provide a list of my accounts and a list of all transactions since my parents' death?" Harry requested.

"The key will take a moment, the summary of your accounts is much easier." Crackjaw withdrew a ledge from his desk. "I will leave you to review it while I see to the key."

The three humans poured over the ledger as soon as Crackjaw left the office. The results were mixed. Dumbledore had tried on multiple occasions to gain access to the main vault but for the moment his actions were limited to small annual withdrawals. However he had almost unlimited access to Harrys trust vault.

When Crackjaw returned he was displeased to see that his client as well as his guests were not happy. He set the new key before Harry. "Here is your new key."

"Thank you; can you please explain some of these withdrawals to us? Particularly the annual ones." Harry said.

Crackjaw pulled the ledger across the desk and examined the entries. "The two annual withdraws are to your guardians. The maximum amount under the law has been withdrawn each year. Five hundred Galleons a month to your magical guardian and, converted the equivalent of a thousand pounds muggle a month to your muggle guardians."

"I thought that's what it said, and I don't suppose there's anyway I can stop these payments?" Harry asked.

"Not until you are of age, unless your guardian requests it." Crackjaw confirmed.

"Wonderful, I doubt the Dursleys spent a thousand pounds on me the whole time I was there." Harry grumbled.

"I am sorry. Is there anything else I may assist you with?" Crackjaw asked, when the client was upset and you couldn't help it was often best to get them out of your office as quickly as possible.

"Does Dumbledore receive any statements about Harry's vaults?" Hermione asked.

"He has only requested a statement twice, once when he first assumed his position as Mr. Potter guardian and just recently." Crackjaw flipped to a different page and showed them.

"Right after your first visit to Gringotts." Hermione said.

Luna flipped back several pages. "Harrys trust vault refills annually as well correct?"

"Yes, on the first of July. Back to five thousand galleons."

"Does Dumbledore receive a notice of withdrawals from Harrys trust vault?" Luna asked.

"Unless he requested such a service, which he has not, the guardian is only informed if the vault is completely emptied." Crackjaw informed them.

"So if Harry left three knuts Dumbledore wouldn't know unless he asked?" Hermione smiled as she caught Luna's idea.

"Correct." Crackjaw stated, it was not uncommon for pure bloods to try such things to stash a bit of money away in case they were ever disinherited.

"Well that's one thing in our favor then, unless either of you ladies can think of anything else I guess the only thing left to do is a trip down to my trust vault." Harry said, when the both shook their heads the trio went back to stand in line, when Harry asked to be taken to his vault he also purchased one of Gringotts money bags to hold the contents of his vault.

They climbed into the mine cart, Hermione latched onto Harrys arm when she saw the tracks disappearing into the darkness. "I should have waited in the lobby."

The mine cart jerked forward. Harry pulled Hermione onto his lap and wrapped his arms around her; she buried he head against him as they hit their first drop. Everyone screamed, Luna and Harry with excitement, Hermione with horror. The cart shot along the tracks, sparks flying from the wheels. When they arrived at his vault Harry helped a shaky Hermione out of the cart. He supposed it was another side effect of the merger of their older and younger self but she seemed worse than he had thought she would. She even looked a little green. "Why can't they just install elevators?"

Luna skipped cheerfully ahead. "Because elevators don't make the wizards scream like mine carts."

Their goblin guide looked shocked but quickly schooled his features. Hermione gave him a careful glance, "Is that true?"

"I'd tell you but you'd have to kill me." The goblin growled.

Hermione frowned. "Don't you mean you'd tell us but you'd have to kill us?"

"No see, it's not technically illegal for you to know, but it's treasonous for me to tell you." The goblin explained.

Luna spun around. "Don't worry our lips are sealed, in fact one of Harrys favorite things is to make purebloods scream."

Harry blushed at her seductive wink. The goblin guide just appeared confused but made no further comment as he opened the vault. As they began to fill the bag Hermione turned back to the goblin. "Do you know if any fee's for this vault are taken from this vault or the main Potter vault?"

"All fee's for trust vaults are taken from the main vault." The goblin said.

"Thank you." Hermione returned to shoveling coins into the bag. They only left three knuts in the trust vault when they stepped back into the mine cart. Luna insisted that she get to ride on Harrys lap this time. Harry put an arm around her waist and kept the other around Hermione holding her close on the way back up.

0-O-0

The rest of their shopping went quickly; they picked up a large number of potion ingredients and professional rune carving kits along with blank stones. The clerks were surprised but just as happy to sell to first years with more galleons then sense as they were older students. At the bookstore they picked up a number of books they knew wouldn't be at Potter Manor, Hermione had been both disappointed and thrilled when she realized she'd have to rebuild the library's collection from the point they first found it at.

Harry also bought the three of them bottomless book bags, which were not actually bottomless to Hermione's disappointment. She resolved to remake her bottomless beaded bag before Christmas. Still between the three of them they were able to easily carry all their purchases.

Trunks were another matter though; at first Harry wanted to buy all of them multiple compartment expanded trunks. Hermione pointed out her parents and Luna's father would notice new trunks. Luna also pointed out they knew most of the charms and runes needed and could just upgrade their own trunks and do a better job.

Finally Harry admitted they were correct. "Well I guess we just have to pick up the furry devil then."

"Harry really." Hermione scolded. But she was much too excited at the thought of seeing Crookshanks again to truly be angry. In the old time line she had sent him with her parents to watch after them. When she learned of their deaths she also learned Crookshanks had taken three Death Eaters down before they got him, two were forever disfigured and one had died as a result. Unfortunately Ron had only been one of the disfigured ones, and it wasn't even a debilitating disfigurement.

As soon as they entered the Magical Mangier a small orange squished faced kitten leapt from the top shelf and into Hermione's arms. She held up the small animal. "How adorable."

While Harry had always thought kittens looked cute; the tiny Crookshanks just looked grumpy. The darker stripes that had blended into his fur with age were still prominent enchaining his tiger like appearance. The clerk was happy to see the orange kitten leave, apparently it had already scratched up a dozen first years who had tried to pick him up. Harry paid for him as well as just about everything the store sold for cats in the hopes of buttering up the furry devil while he was still young.

They had just stepped out the door loaded down with their purchases for Crookshanks, and a few for Hedwig, when Luna was knocked to the ground.

"Watch where you are going, really they should clear the riffraff from the Alley." a young Nott said.

Harry reached down to help Luna up as he remembered the last time he had seen Nott, he along with most of the students turned Death Eaters had all died to the twins last prank. Hermione apparently remembered what he would do as well. "You're the one who ran into her, why don't you watch where you are going?"

"Why should I, I am Theodor Nott, pureblood, what are all of you? Mudbloods by the look of it. You shouldn't even be allowed here." Nott said with the typical air of superiority pureblood fanatics had.

They were shocked, had Nott always been that bad? True most of their dealings had been with Malfoy so they didn't know as much about some of the other Slytherins. Nott took their pause as acceptance and began to turn away. Only to be hissed at by Crookshanks who had set himself in front of the stores window.

"Gah! What is that abomination?" Nott cried out.

"Your reflection." Luna said.

"What, no right there!" Nott pointed towards the spot Crookshanks had occupied only to find it empty, the orange kitten and already jumped into one of Hermione's bags.

"Right, your reflection." Hermione said. "I suppose that's the result of inbreeding."

A few others out in the Alley had stopped to watch the altercation and chuckled. Nott was ready to challenge them to a duel, if it wasn't for the fact he wasn't supposed to reveal the magic he already knew. Instead he settled for a comment about mudbloods knowing their place.

As he stepped away Harry moved into his path and roughly shoved into him, he used the action to cover slipping his wand from his shelve and casting a quick hex. It was fast and simple but the most Harry could risk with his current power level and their location. The hex would cause Nott to break wind at the worst times, the more serious or public the moment the worse it would be.

Hermione and Luna knew Harrys look all too well and they hurried out of the Alley. He refused to explain what had happened until they were on the Knight Bus heading towards the Dursleys to retrieve his school supplies. Both Luna and Hermione were adamant that he wouldn't be returning there and since Luna's father didn't seem to object to an extended guest he would stay with her until Hogwarts started.

A quick sleeping spell over the house was all it took to make sure the Dursleys wouldn't bother them as they retrieved Harrys few possessions, removing several tracking charms in the process. Then it was back into the sitting room where Dudley was asleep in front of the television. It took several minutes for Hermione to move the last charm from Harry to his cousin. During that time Luna had wondered off and left a few surprises for the family that had done so much to hurt her Harry.

Hermione had also wondered off for a few minutes afterwards to leave her own presents.

0-O-0

That evening Nott attended an important dinner with his father and several of his former companions. After the fall of the Dark Lord, while Malfoy was seemingly granted the position of intern leader, or perhaps figure head would have been a better term, fractions in those that remained sprung up. Among them was the one Nott's family belonged to. Their idea was simple, watch and wait. Strike when you can and let Malfoy draw the attention of the light to himself.

Unfortunately as Nott was receiving his instructions for Hogwarts, stay in the shadows and let Draco be the figure head for the house while he helped control the true power, the hex Harry had placed upon him kicked in. Just as he was shaking hands with their fractions leader. The noise was heard throughout the dining room and several connection rooms. Bubble head charms were quickly cast. The disappointment and outrage was clear on everyone's face, especially his fathers. In a moment Nott knew that it was the fault of the black haired boy that had shoved him earlier that day, he was the only one who had gotten close to him that day. The mudblood would pay he silently promised even as the others in the meeting made their displeasure known.

0-O-0

(A/N: Thank you for reading. Comments and critiques are welcome; flames will be force feed to a random minion. Also a big thank you to my beta Katzztar, thank you for all your work.)


	6. I Dub Thee Minion Fuzzy Head

Disclaimer: I own neither the Harry Potter world nor Santa, but if the poisoned cookies work that might change soon.

Tempest of the Fae

Chapter Six: I Dub Thee Minion Fuzzy Head

0-O-0

When Harry Hermione and Luna returned from retrieving Harry's school supplies from the Dursleys, and leaving behind their own little tricks, they found that Mr. Lovegood had decided to have a BBQ. Or something fairly close to one. None of them could identify what he was cooking but it smelled good and tasted better. Both Hedwig and Crookshanks sat on the table eating their own smaller portion set out by Mr. Lovegood.

After dinner Mr. Lovegood went inside and left the children around the table. Hermione absently reached out to scratch Crookshanks behind an ear when a thought crossed her mind. "Harry, did you or Luna check Hedwig for charms?"

"No, I really don't see when Dumbledore could have even put anything on her." Harry said. He had only had Hedwig for a short time and he was sure he hadn't seen Dumbledore during that limited period.

"But didn't Hagrid give her to you, and he'd do anything Dumbledore says so..." Hermione didn't need to finish. All of their heads turned towards Hedwig. The owl watched them, confused.

Harry held out his arm for her and carried her around to Hermione. Crookshanks checked out clean however a quick spell revealed two charms on the white owl, a tracking charm and another to let the caster know if she was carrying any mail. "Well the tracking charms will have shown where she went but the wards should be blocking that for now. I can remove both or transfer them."

"Transfer would probably be best. It'd buy us more time than just removing them." Harry said.

"Alright, then what should I stick them on, preferably something that can fly away and lead Dumbledore on a bit of a chase." Hermione said. Normally they could conjure something that would last long enough for them to return to school but with their now limited power she thought that feat might be beyond them.

"I'll take care of it." Luna said as she skipped into her house.

Harry and Hermione traded looks. Harry was the first to break the silence. "So, wanna bet on what she brings back?"

"Harry we could speculate all night and would probably still be wrong." Hermione set Crookshanks on her lap where he curled up for an after dinner nap.

"Probably right, I wonder what she'll come up with." They didn't need to wait long as Luna quickly returned, with a balloon floating behind her and an old tube of paint.

"That could work." Hermione said as she caught onto Luna's idea. "The paints for runes right?"

"Yup, I figure a few for protection and it'll be able to last several months." Luna said as she set back down.

Hermione grabbed Crookshanks as he tried to pounce on the balloon. Harry and Hedwig watched as Luna began to paint runes onto the balloon with Hermione making suggestions. For the tenth time he resolved to take Ancient Runes this time around, he wanted to know more than just the ones involved in wards. When she was done with the Runes Luna finished the balloon by painting a happy goat's face onto it. Hermione transferred the spells to the balloon and they released it into the growing dusk. The balloon ascended rapidly until it was nothing more than a spec on the horizon. The three humans, cat and owl went back inside the Rookery.

0-O-0

The headmaster was finishing up one of the countless last minute forms that crossed his desk each year around this time when the tracking charm he had placed on Harrys owl gave a warning of a vast change in location, normally associated with a portkey or apparition. Curious Dumbledore watch as it settled on a new location, above Ottery St. Catchpole traveling south fairly quickly.

Now that was odd, it was the same general area the owl had disappeared from before the charms showed it in China. Could there be something in that area that was interfering with his tracking charms? The idea was preposterous but still better safe than sorry. If there was some kind of new ward there he would need to investigate it. As soon as he had the time.

0-O-0

Vernon woke to the sound of his doorbell being rung incessantly. "Knock off that racket!"

He wrenched open the door to find a deliver man standing on the porch with dozens of pizza boxes. "Sorry that took so long dude, big order. Alright two dozen extra-large pizzas, six meaty meat Supremes, six veggie specials, six quadruple cheese and six diets. Your total is three hundred and twenty six even."

"What?"

"Huh?"

"What's the meaning of this, we didn't order any pizzas." Vernon shouted. Although they did smell good. Thanks to Luna's compulsion over the next several weeks anyone at the Dursleys door would have an easy time selling to them. Pizzas, vacuums, times shares in Borneo. The charms made sure that Vernon was desperate to have it. To his credit he did try to fight the magic.

The delivery man handed over the receipt. "Is that your number?"

"Yes, that's our phone number." Vernon confirmed, his eyes darting to the stack of pizzas.

"Well since it's a big order we called and confirmed it, so someone here ordered them." The delivery man said.

"One moment." Vernon slammed the door and stormed into the kitchen where Petunia was asleep in a chair. He shook her. "Did you order two dozen pizzas?"

"Wha? Of course I didn't!"

"Well someone did and the delivery man says they called to confirm it." Vernon was sweating, his mind being drawn back towards the delicious pizzas all alone outside. They needed him.

"It's obviously a scam, send them away." Petunia said absently.

"Well, you know pizza does sound good, maybe we should just take them." Vernon reached for his wallet. "After all… where's my bloody money?"

"What do you mean where is it?" Petunia asked.

"All of my money is gone!"

In a flash Petunia was at her purse only to discover it empty as well. "Vernon! We've been robbed! Call the police!"

"Right away, as soon as I find the money to pay for those pizzas." It was twenty minutes later before Vernon finally called the police; he spent that time searching for any money left in the house. When it became clear there wasn't a single note left he went to the garage and into his hidden safe.

Petunia followed him around the entire time and glared. And once the pizzas were paid for she sat at the table and glared over the boxes. Vernon had barely hung up the phone; being assured an officer would be there soon, when the doorbell rang again. "Well that was fas…"

A man in a cheap Chinese costume stood outside. "Fifty orders of the dragon duck and twenty eight of the special pork right?"

Forget the pizza, this, this was the food he _needed_.

0-O-0

That evening Harry Lune and Hermione 'camped out' in Luna's living room. Which meant pushing two mattresses together and using sticking charms, courtesy of Mr. Lovegood, to hang a sheet over them like a tent. When they settled down for bed Harry found himself penned between Luna and Hermione, not that he was going to complain, it was one of his favorite places.

"Are you sure your father won't mind this Luna." Hermione asked without any real concern. She was sure it would be a problem Luna would have spoken up sooner, still she had to check.

"No, as I explained last night we're all too young to do anything so he doesn't need to worry." Luna's voice was a mixture of annoyance and disappointment.

"Good, I missed sleeping with both of you last night." Hermione said and she cuddled against Harry. The feeling, while still very pleasant was different then what she remembered from the future. As far as she could tell it was a result of her younger self having had so little direct physical contact. Not that she would let that stop her.

0-O-0

Harry woke early the next morning. Hermione was still curled up against him, Luna had shifted during the night and now lay sprawled across their legs, her limbs spread across the mattress. She gave a slight snore. It took several minutes for Harry to detangle himself from the girls without waking them, slipping a pillow in for Hermione to continue to hold.

Breakfast was almost finished when Mr. Lovegood came downstairs; he looked over the food with surprise and a bit of curiosity. "This is quite impressive Harry."

"Thank you sir, I hope you don't mind that I made breakfast." Harry said from the stove, it had taken him several minutes to figure out what the extra knobs did, in some cases it had appeared to be nothing but the alarming noises from outside had convinced him to stop before he went much further then turning it on.

"Not at all, it's a nice change. Luna, bless her heart, can't seem to cook anything without large amounts of sugar in it. Is there anything I can do to help?" A quick flick on his wand had already set the table.

"No I think I have it, actually there is one thing. Luna was telling me about something her mum made. Terracotta pudding. I would like to make it for her sometime, do you have a recipe?" Harry asked. He Luna and Hermione had made several dozen attempts to recreate the pudding for Luna in the future. It proved to be a seemingly impossible task. They had been able to recreate several factors of the pudding but never at the same time. The color and texture were easiest, a slightly lumpy, terracotta color. They had never gotten the taste correct though and all their attempts failed the hardening test. Luna claimed if the pudding was allowed to sit out and harden it became not unlike Terracotta pottery. Harry and Hermione had their doubts about this simply because they could not imagine Luna leaving any of it to harden.

Xeno took a minute to study Harry. "I do have the recipe, technically it should be a Lovegood family secret, however I never had the heart to make it after Luna's mother passed and I am afraid if I teach it to Luna she'll never eat anything else. So I will give it to you on the condition that don't let her go overboard, deal?"

"Thank you sir." Harry smiled brightly, now he just needed to figure out the best time to make it. Maybe her birthday? He took the small pink index card from Xeno and looked over the recipe. It looked like they'd come closest on attempt 27, although after that one they'd needed to buy a new oven.

"Not a problem, I'll just wake the girls then?" Xeno offered.

"Sure, last of it is just finishing." Harry said scooping up the last of breakfast and setting it on the table. A too perky Luna all but bounced to the table, followed by a groggy Hermione. Her wild hair spread out in all direction framing her face. She flopped down at the table and grabbed the pot of coffee.

Hermione had barely taken a sip when her eyes shot open and she gagged. "Ug, that's, really strong."

Xeno smiled as he poured his own cup. "Thank you; it's very good isn't it? I have a friend down in South America that sends me some. He's involved in the Banana Rebellion."

"The what?" Hermione asked before she could stop herself.

"The Banana Rebellion is a group of wizards dedicated to freeing the one true banana. You see all the bananas we eat come from tress that are magically grown copies of the one true banana tree, its being held at a breeding camp." Xeno explained as he ate.

"If there's only one what are they trying to breed it with?" Harry asked, partially curious and partially because Hermione looked about ready to bang her head on the table.

"Oh this and that. Mostly to implant banana like tendency's into other fruit. Can you imagine an apple that tasted like a banana or an orange that peeled like one? Or a full banana banana, why we'd never know the difference!" Xeno exclaimed. "The only reason I haven't written about it yet is because my friend asked me to keep it quiet until they free the true banana tree."

"Of course." Hermione nodded, after years of living with Luna she had decided politely nodding was the easiest way out of these conversations. But she made a note to suggest to Luna that she monitor who her father associated with.

After breakfast they prepared for their 'hike'. Luna must have leant Hermione some of her clothes because they both came out of her room dressed wearing green tank tops and kakis. Hermione had managed to tame her hair enough to slip it into a pony tail. "First chance I get I'm buying Sleekeazy's hair potion."

"Er, Hermione they won't come out with the long lasting stuff for a couple more years." Harry pointed out.

"Fine then I'll make my own." Hermione stated.

"You can test it on me." Luna offered as she led them into the woods around the Rookery, there was a road not far away where they would summon the Knight Bus away from prying eyes.

"Thank you but your hairs already tame so I don't know what I could learn from you using anything I come up with." Hermione said, ideas already swirling in her head, she should have most of the ingredients already. At least enough for a few tests.

"True but you can see if it does something else interesting."

"You're hoping the potion will turn your hair weird colors aren't you?" Hermione asked.

"Well I certainly wouldn't be opposed if that happened." Luna agreed.

"Fine you can help me test a few potions, but don't blame me if you end up bald." Hermione warned as they summoned the Knight Bus and paid for their trip.

"As long as Harry would love me bald, would you still love me if I was bald Harry?" Luna asked with a pout.

"Have I ever complained when you were bald before?" Harry teased.

"No, I don't believe so, well that's settled." Luna said cheerfully.

The closest town to Potter Manor was a good hike away so instead they had the Knight Bus drop them off along the road. The driver looked around confused. "You sure this is the right place?"

"This is it, thank you." They climbed off and made their way into Cauldron Woods. The entire forest belonged to the Potters and was aptly named because quite a few potion ingredients grew wild deeper in the woods. The first time they had tried to find Potter Manor was after they found a reference to it in the Black library.

The woods were considered haunted by the locals, although that was simple a result of the wards around the area. While wards naturally tended to be round, forming a bubble over a location smaller ward stone could be used to define and keep the wards restricted to a certain area. These were the two common arrangements used by most wizards; the Potters had gone in the opposite direction and used ward stone to stretch some of their wards out giving the wards an egg shape. While this weakened the wards it worked well for their design.

Potter Manor was located along the south shore of Loch Troll in the northern part of the forest. Because the northern ridge of the loch was impossible to reach by muggle means the wards were allowed to exist in their natural bubble form. While along the south end the wards were stretched to cover most of the forest. To anyone examining the outer wards it would appear the forest was the easy point of entry.

Except that the forest was pocketed with smaller independent wards placed randomly. In some places several of these wards overlapped and any force rushing into the woods was in for an interesting time. The Manor itself had siege wards that would only activate if the outer wards fell, giving the attacker no notice of them.

The Potters didn't want to hurt the people who just wondered into the woods though and placed smaller wards along the woods edge. Mild confusion wards to keep people lost but away from the deeper sections, wards to cause a feeling of fear along with muggle repelling wards. In all it worked very well to keep the location secret and protected.

Of course there was an easy way past all of the wards and other traps that had been laid throughout the woods, be a Potter or be traveling with a Potter. They had barely entered the woods when the first blue light appeared floating at eye level. Then another further in. They appeared to be will-o-wisps but were actually part of the wards, used to guide those who were allowed entry to Potter Manor. Hermione insisted Harrys ancestors all wanted to be actors because it was such a dramatic method.

"You know we'll have to re-upgrade everything when we get the chance?" Hermione pointed out.

"That'll have to wait a year or two; I don't think I have enough magic right now to pull some of that off." Because the wards were so powerful already aside from a few alterations they were left mostly alone. Instead the three of them had added guardians in the form of transfigured golems etched with runes to permanently hold their forms. After all if they were ever attacked it would probably be with an army so they'd need their own to fend them off. "Maybe we can find a few house elves soon too; we need someone to watch the wards for us."

Many of the smaller wards functioned independently of the main wards, which meant if the egg was breached they would still function. However that also meant all had their own separate ward stones to use and maintain. Most wizards simply didn't have that kind of time and refused to allow anyone else, such as a house elf, to take care of it instead.

"Well once we get that binding off of your magic you could probably do the smaller ones." Hermione said.

"Oh! Make the turtles first, they were fun and weren't overly big." Luna pleaded.

Harry smiled, the turtles were transfigured from stone and Luna had taken to riding them around the forest and shore of the loch. Even though he had created them they seemed to like her more, and after she did a bit of rune work which he'd never been able to understand they acted more alive than before.

After an hour of hiking the relatively level trail they arrived at Potter Manor, the wooden structure looked just as it had the first time they'd found it. Preservation charms and runes had maintained it over the last decade or so. The door yielded easily to Harrys touch.

As soon as they stepped in Hermione made for the library. Harry had to reach out and grab her by her backpack. She struggled against his grip. "Harry, let go."

She tried to wiggle out of the straps. Harry sighed; it looked like they would have to work on her book obsession _again._ "Hermione, I have to claim the ward stone first before we can do anything else, remember?"

"Oh, right, I knew that." Hermione blushed at her mistake. She had gotten better about books in the future, really she had.

They walked down into the basement, then through another door into the subbasement. Hidden behind a false section of wall was the ward room, assessable through the subbasement or the office upstairs. Which was locked to them until Harry claimed the wards. The ward stone was actually the top of a stone pillar one of Harry's ancestors had buried to try and gain more power for the wards. Made of local stone it was several times larger than a normal ward stone to make up for being of a poorer material. The same ancestor who had buried the pillar theorized that the stone would better be able to draw on the natural magic of the area to power the wards if the stone wasn't exotic to the area. The sheer size and power of the stone prevented them from ever discovering if these theories were true or not.

Hermione and Luna stood back as Harry approached the exposed portion of the stone. Even when he had been full grown the stone had been a good two feet taller than him. Harry pulled out a camping knife that he had borrowed from Luna's basement and cut his hand. Then laid it on the ward stone in a circle of runes. "I, Harry James Potter, do claim Potter Manor as is my right by birth and blood."

The runes on the stone glowed, spreading from Harrys hand across the stone and over the floor until they filled the room. They flashed and a wave of magic was released knocking them off their feet.

0-O-0

In the Headmasters office Fawkes napped on his perch. The Sorting Hat animated and watched as one of the silver interments on a shelf near it began to spin backwards violently before it stopped. After several minutes it still remained motionless. The Sorting Hat frowned and stared intently at the instrument, finally it slowly began to turn again as it had before. The Sorting Hat chuckled. Fawkes shook himself and looked up questioningly. "Oh nothing, just remembered that joke from the sixteen hundreds about the monk, the gargoyle and the hog."

Fawkes rolled his eyes before he settled back into his nap. The Sorting Hat huffed. "As I recall you didn't think it was funny back then either, humorless burnt chicken."

0-O-0

Petunia was angry at everyone and everything. The night before delivery men kept arriving with ludicrous orders of take out, and instead of sending them packing like he should have her husband had actually paid for it all! Then there were the officers who had been no help with their missing money. No evidence of a crime indeed, and to have the nerve to ask if they had questioned Dudley. If anyone, it was her no good freak of a nephew who had snuck back in and taken their money but they couldn't report that because then they'd have to admit he had disappeared.

Now all of the food had spoiled, oddly enough the food she had put in the fridge was actually worse than that which had been left out. All of it was ruined though; the smell had nearly knocked her out that morning when she got up for breakfast.

It had taken hours to throw it all away and air out the kitchen. Honestly it was as if the fridge was cursed, literally everything inside it had spoiled. Why there was even mold on the ice cubes! At least the food they left out was easy to throw away.

But now she could finally relax, Petunia sat down at the table and prepared to read the latest gossip column with her afternoon tea. And her chair collapsed.

0-O-0

"Hermione, Luna?" Harry called out as he rolled over and groaned. That had hurt.

"We're fine." Luna called back. It was several seconds before their eyes were able to see again. Everything seemed to be the same in the chamber, the ward stone hummed gently as it became fully active. "Did the wards connect?"

Harry took a moment to find the familiar link to the wards in the back of his mind. "Seems so. Hang on and I'll add both of you."

The process of adding a person to the wards was fairly simple, only requiring Harry to pass permission to the wards to let the person though. Tying Hermione and Luna in was a little more difficult and involved a repeat of the process Harry had just performed.

Once both were properly added Hermione dragged them to the library and began to search for the books she needed. Luna quickly joined in her hunt for the necessary ritual to break the block on Harry. While they were both busy Harry went to retrieve the spare wands that they had used last time. As he walked through the halls he noticed that even under preservation charms everything would still need a good cleaning.

When he got back to the library there was a small stack of books on the table and more spread open before them. Hermione looked up from her reading and grabbed another book. "Good you're back. Stand still I need a detailed reading of the block on you so we can break it with as little pain as possible."

Setting the extra wands aside Harry moved to the middle of the room and stood still while Hermione cast the more complex detection spell. Her sudden bout of cursing was not reassuring. "That bastard! How could he! Luna find the curse that causes facial hair to strangle its owner. Dumbledore is in for a surprise when we get to Hogwarts."

"Er, Hermione not that I don't agree with getting Dumbledore why the sudden hostility?" Harry figured it was something to do with his block but it was better to get Hermione talking in these situations instead of plotting.

"We were wrong, you don't have a block, you have a lock." Hermione explained.

"Pretend I have no idea what the difference is." Harry suggested, since he really didn't.

"Alright a block will grow with a person. If your power is two hundred and you have a fifty percent block you can only use a hundred, if your power grows to three hundred the power you can use grows to one hundred and fifty. But a lock doesn't change. It doesn't matter how strong you become because the lock will only let you use the set amount of power. Right now that isn't too bad, but in a few years you won't be any stronger no matter how much your magic grows." Hermione explained.

"But you can still remove it right?" Harry asked, this sounded a bit more complicated than a block.

"Of course we can, it'll just hurt more." Hermione said.

"Well I'm no stranger to pain. Let's get this lock off." Harry struck a heroic pose to try and reassure them.

"Well need to go to the basement, the rune circle is pretty big." Hermione began to gather up the books.

Harry noticed Luna had been quiet since Hermione mentioned the lock; he went over and put an arm around her. "Hey, you alright?"

"No, that bastard put a lock on you; they used to do that to prisoners before it was deemed inhuman. He did something to you they won't even do to prisoners on Azkaban." Luna pulled Harry's arm tighter around her. "It's just not fair."

"No it's not but it's in the past, we'll get rid of the lock and be done with it." Together the three of them walked into the basement and cleared out one of the larger store rooms, in the future they had set it up for a few of the rituals they had done. Luna pulled out her paints and along with Hermione they began to draw out the runes. When they were done the circle spread to the corners of the room and up the wall.

Hermione doubled checked the last part of the circle. "Harry, maybe we should wait. If we could find the key spell Dumbledore used to tie off the lock it wouldn't hurt nearly as much when we remove it."

"But it'd still hurt, and there's no guarantee we could find the spell right? It's better to just get it over with." Harry took his place in the middle of the circle.

"Er, Harry we aren't finished yet, we need to paint some runes onto you." Hermione blushed.

"Oh, eh, right. Where exactly?"

Luna happily handed Hermione another bottle of paint. "Just your chest and legs, so strip."

"Wait what? You mean, right now?" Harry asked, his mind, for all that it knew he had done far more then strip in front of them before had frozen.

"It's alright Harry, remember what we talked about?" Luna said kindly as she started to unbutton his shirt.

"What did you two talk about?" Hermione asked.

"Oh I just told Harry that he has nothing to be embarrassed about just because he's a scrawny child again. None of us have any of the fun bits yet." Luna explained.

"That's true, and a surprisingly mature view." Hermione said slightly confused, normally Luna was the more childlike among them.

Harry shrugged off his shirt, blushing. _It'll be no different than if we went swimming._ He repeated to himself several times. "I figured she was channeling you somehow."

"Hey I can be perfectly mature on my own." Luna articulated her point by stamping her foot.

Taking a deep breath Harry pulled off his pants, they joined his shirt in the unmarked corner of the floor. Harrys blush deepened and spread down his chest. "Can we just get this over with?"

"Hey! Those are my boxers!" Luna cried. "I can't believe you stole them."

"Really? After all the times you and Hermione took my clothes? Besides it was either this or wear Dudley's old pair." Harry retorted.

Both girls made a disgusted face. "Never mind, keep them."

Harry couldn't help but shiver as they painted the last runes on him. The brush swirled around his stomach. They stepped back and Hermione raised her wand to begin. "Are you sure Harry?"

"I am." Harry said from his seated position in the middle of the circle. He felt the runes heat as they began the incantation to remove the lock. He gritted his teeth as the runes burned, though there was no outwards sign it felt as if they were burning through his flesh right down to the bone, and he knew what that felt like. His muscles twitched as they urged him to move away from the pain.

Then they rapidly cooled and Harry left out a long sigh, that hadn't been so bad. As Hermione finished the incantation the true pain came. It began deep within, thousands of burning needles pushed out from a single point. The last thing Harry saw was his body thrashing, Hermione and Luna running towards him.

0-O-0

For the second time that day the Sorting Hat animated as something else within the Headmaster's office changed. A silver medallion setting near it cracked. The alarm ward tied to the medallion barely had time to sound before the Sorting Hat silenced it. "Can't sleep with all that racket."

He settled back in to finish his summer nap.

0-O-0

Harry managed to choke out a groan. He tried to remember the battle he had just been in; judging by how he felt it had to have been bad. "Harry?"

Slowly Harry forced his eyes open; he also became aware of something tight around his left arm. Hermione's face hovered above him. He managed to groan. "What happened?"

Hermione pulled him into a tight hug; whatever was wrapped around his left arm resisted the movement. "I'm sorry I'm so sorry."

"It's fine, now what happened? Were we attacked?" Harry pulled her close.

"No, it was the ritual; it was more painful than I thought it would be. How do you feel?" Hermione didn't wait for a reply knowing full well Harry wouldn't tell the truth. Instead she began casting diagnostic spells.

"Like that time we fought those Death Eaters at the quidditch factory and Luna released all the bludgers at once." Harry said, he turned over to see what was wrong with his left arm and found Luna had it in a death grip even while asleep. "Is Luna alright?"

"Just worried, she's afraid you'll be angry with us and leave." Hermione said in a small voice. It took him a moment to realize she had a similar fear. He didn't understand it but he knew if he was worried about losing either of them he'd be in worse shape then her.

"Why would I do that? Especially after all the years we've been together?" Harry tried to figure out the blonde's reasoning and failed.

"On one level we know that, but on another it's a very real fear to our younger self." Hermione explained as she examined the results of her charms. "Well the good news is that the lock is gone and your power is almost three sixty."

"That's higher than expected." Harry said, that would put his final power at a thousand eighty.

"I think that in our time the lock caused problems and never let you reach your full power. Maybe the pressure on your magical core stunted it." Hermione thought out loud.

"Well a bit more power is nice. How long was I out?"

"Just over an hour, the pain should finish fading soon but it looks like you'll be sore for a while." Hermione explained.

"Alright, we should probably head home soon, I'll wake Luna." Harry rolled over as best he could and gently shook the small girl. "Luna, come on wake up."

Luna blinked her eyes before they focused on Harry, at which point she held on even tighter to his arm and buried her head against him mumbling apologies. Harry's stroked her hair with his free hand. "Luna, it's alright, I'll be fine, the locks gone and I'm not angry, really."

"Really?" Luna sniffed.

"Really. Come one we should be getting back to your house." Harry helped her off the bed and the three made their way out of the manor. As Harry made sure the wards were properly set on the front door he voiced a question that he had been meaning to ask. "While we're here should we try appariting? I don't really fancy a hike back through the wood."

"Well. We could try, but are you sure you're up to it? I mean after what you've been through you could splice yourself." Hermione warned.

"I've apparated through worse." Harry assured her.

"Fine, but we start small, just around the yard." Hermione insisted.

Half an hour later the group popped into existence near the road. None of them had had the slightest trouble with apparition. Though Harry was still limping slightly from the pain in his muscles when they summoned the Knight Bus. When the attendant saw Harry he grunted. "What happened to you kid?"

"Took a tumble hiking, nothing to worry about." Harry said trying at act tough. Either it worked or the attendant didn't care because he waved them on. The jarring bus ride back to the Rookery was far from pleasant for Harry. Thankfully Mr. Lovegood was out when they arrived back and they were all able to make their way up to Luna's room before Harry collapsed on her bed.

"I feel like I've just been through a week of Wood's quidditch practice."

"Well we could probably come up with something to help you with that." Hermione offered.

"Some kind of pain relief potion?" Harry wondered out loud.

"Sorry none brewed yet, I was thinking a massage." Hermione climbed onto the bed and began to work on his shoulders. Harry groaned as his muscles relaxed. Luna quickly joined in and went to work on his lower back. They moved onto his arms and legs, when they were finished Harry reminded her of a half melted candle.

Luna hated to disturb him but there was one more thing she wanted to get done before her father returned. "Harry, Hermione, I found a ritual that we can perform now that I think will help us."

"Which one is it?" Hermione asked cautiously. This wouldn't be the first time Luna had tried to trick them with a fake ritual, though the fifty gallons of pudding had been a dead giveaway.

"It's the familiar bonding ritual. It speeds up the process of bonding with a familiar. I wanted to wait until Harry's lock was removed before I suggested it." Luna said.

"Why haven't I ever heard of it?" Hermione asked, it sounded very useful.

"Well how many people older than students do you know with familiars?" Luna asked.

Hermione considered it for a moment. "Only Dumbledore."

"Exactly. Most witches and wizards just don't bother. To many a familiar is just a pet that's a bit smarter than others. However according to the notes on the ritual a familiar that belongs to a powerful witch or wizard may actually be able to communicate with them. I think Harry counts as powerful enough. And if nothing else it will add a little magic to Hedwig and Crookshanks as well as a bit more intelligence as well." Luna pulled out the book with the ritual in it and handed it to Hermione.

"So worst case scenario is they get a little smarter and stronger?" She asked.

"Yup, best case is you'll be able to actually understand them, I made a slight change that should let all three of us understand each of them." Luna pointed the change out to Hermione to look over.

"Well it looks good, certainly it won't hurt anything. What do you say Harry? Up for another ritual?"

Harry groaned and rolled over. "Will there be more pain?"

"Shouldn't be." Hermione said, a quick check of the notes confirmed it. "How long have you been working on this Luna?"

"I may have spent a bit of time before we came back working on the idea." Luna admitted.

"Want Crookshanks and I to go first Harry?" Hermione asked.

"No, it's fine. So Hedwig up for an adventure?" Hedwig glided to land on his shoulder. "I'll take that as a yes."

The familiar bonding ritual was surprisingly simple; Harry supposed it really was a case of older magic users just not wanting to bother with a familiar. Luna carved out a few of the blank plates they had picked up in Diagon Alley while Hermione brewed the simple potion. The original potion called for a drop of blood from both Harry and Hedwig, since blood magic was outlawed the alternate formal called for a hair from Harry and a feather from Hedwig. Hermione made a slight alteration to help the potion get closer to what it once was.

Hermione set aside another dose of the potion for her and Crookshanks before she added Harry's hair, absently she wondered what would happen if you preformed the ritual with another person. Harry would make a good familiar; she shook her head to clear the thought.

When the potion was done she gave it to Harry, then she and Luna each stood on one of the extra plates that should tie them into the ritual, and if Harry was able to understand Hedwig then theoretically they should be able to as well.

Harry passed one of the vials to Hedwig who gripped the rim with her beak, she threw her head back and chugged the potion. Harry blinked in surprise but quickly did the same with his own. For a moment nothing happened until the after taste hit. Harry shuddered in revolution. Not as bad as polyjuice but it was close.

"_Ug, that was worse than the time I tried to eat a Binya binya."_ It took everyone a moment to realize they had just heard Hedwig speak.

Luna was the first to recover. "What's a Binya binya?"

"_A giant yellow polliwog. Oh, you've all learned to understand me, good."_ Hedwig sounded exceptional pleased.

Hermione grabbed the book and looked over the ritual again. "Impressive, I thought the most we'd be able to get were some strong feelings. Though there is one thing that concerns me, since this ritual is supposed to alter Hedwig's intelligence based on Harrys, she might actually be a bit dimmer then she was before."

"Hey!" Harry cried out. "That's not… Hedwig! Stop laughing! Hermione just do yours, I'm out numbered three to one by smart girls, maybe Crookshanks will side with me."

Hermione and Crookshanks quickly traded places with Harry and Hedwig and repeated to process. Hermione leaned in expectantly. "Well? Can you talk too now?"

"_I have always been able to speak, I am glad you have finally learned to listen correctly."_ Crookshanks voice was surprisingly high pitched. _"I knew I picked a smart minion, not like those others, always poking me with their tiny fingers."_

"Excuse me? Minion?" Hermione asked.

"_Yes, you are my minion, you feed me, groom me, take care of me, so I dub thee minion fuzzy head."_ Crookshanks proclaimed.

"_A bit full of himself isn't he?"_ Hedwig said as she watched the small kitten strut around on the floor, pleased that his minion was so smart.

"_Silence feathered creature, I am the mighty Crookshanks! You will show me respect or I shall eat you!"_

"_Eat me? I'm over three times your size."_ Hedwig pointed out.

"_That does not matter, I am a feline, and you are but a lowly feathered one, nothing but food and entertainment."_ Crookshanks retorted.

"_Oh really?"_ Hedwig suddenly disappeared with a small pop and reappeared behind Crookshanks, her wings flared out. _"Boo!"_

Crookshanks yowled and jumped back, disappearing, his disembodied voice sounded from several feet away. _"You would dare to upset the natural order! I shall feast upon your, er, plumage! Yes feast I say!"_

Hermione moved towards Crookshank's voice and carefully felt around, her fingers brushed his fur and she picked him up. "Harry did Hedwig just apparate?"

"Only if that's an invisible Crookshanks you're holding." Harry said.

Luna looked between the still laughing Hedwig and the hissing, invisible Crookshanks. "I really need to find a Crumpled Horn Snorkark."

0-O-0

(A/N: Well this came out longer then I planned but I wanted to get them back to Hogwarts in the next chapter. As always a big thank you to my beta Katzztar who helped me work out the ideas of a block vs. a lock. Also thanks to teedub for inspiring some of the Dursleys punishment in this chapter.)


	7. Ghost on the Hogwarts Express

Disclaimer: I own neither the Harry Potter world nor Santa, but if the poisoned cookies work that might change soon.

Tempest of the Fae

Chapter Seven: Ghost on the Hogwarts Express

0-O-0

It took some time to calm Crookshanks down, and even longer to coax him back into the visible spectrum. However once he figured out how to become invisible at will he would disappear again and again, the only clue to his location was the sound of him running around the room laughing. Or the occasional hiss as Hedwig would pop to where ever he was hiding. _"How do you do that? You can't see me can you?"_

"_No, but I am a post owl, I can find anyone whom I have a letter for."_ Hedwig said.

"_You have a letter for me? Is it from another minion?"_ Crookshanks asked excitedly.

"_No, but I can use the same magic that allows me to find the person I have a delivery for to find others close by, even without having mail for them. Though I believe I can always find you since our humans did, well whatever they did."_ Hedwig tried to explain, the concept of the ritual was still difficult for her to fully grasp. Though she understood some of the results.

"_I see, this will make my plans to stalk and eat you more difficult. Unless…. Surprise!"_ The still invisible kitten jumped towards Hedwig who simply popped to the other side of the room. Crookshanks smacked headfirst into Luna's dresser and became visible again.

Harry and Luna watched them with a mixture of amusement and curiosity while Hermione poured over the book Luna had gotten the ritual from. "This is useless, there's no mention of anything like this happening before."

"We could always ask daddy, the book is from our family library so he might know more." Luna suggested.

"Won't we get in trouble for performing magic?" Hermione asked, Mr. Lovegood might be a bit strange but would he overlook something like this?

"No, because we didn't actually break any rules. We used potions and runes, neither of which really counts towards underage magic since they don't involve a wand." Luna said as Crookshanks ran between her feet towards Hedwig, he had forgotten to make himself invisible again.

"What about when you charged the runes?" Harry asked, that had used a wand.

"That was a passive use of magic, so again it doesn't count either. But even if it did I'm sure daddy would be too interested in Hedwig and Crookshanks to be upset." Luna assured them. With no better ideas they agreed to ask Xeno when he returned home.

0-O-0

Xeno returned to the Rookery that evening after putting the finishing touches on the next issue of the Quibbler. He wasn't surprised to see that Harry and Hermione were still there, playing a card game with Luna on the coffee table. What was a bit of a shock though was that Harrys owl Hedwig seemed to also be playing, and winning if the stack of galleons in front of her was any indication. Hermione's kitten sat near her, a galleon clutched between his paws and he bit at it again and again. "Good evening everyone."

"Daddy!" Luna jumped up from the table and rushed to hug him. Hedwig took the opportunity to peek at her cards, then set her own hand down and folded. "We had a question about the familiar bonding ritual."

"Oh? Does one of you want to give it a try?" Xeno asked as it truly was an interesting ritual; he himself had performed it while he was in Hogwarts with his pet toad, though all he had gotten from it were vague feelings and impressions, mostly about food. And a taste for beetle soup. Speaking of which he should make some soon.

"We already did." Luna explained.

"Is that why Hedwig is playing poker?"

"No, that's just to kill time until you got home. There were side effects."

"Oh dear, did someone grow extra appendages?"

"No."

"Lose appendages?"

"No."

"Does it involve a furless raccoon?"

"Not that I know of."

"Well then I doubt it's too bad. What happened?" Xeno asked.

To answer his question Hedwig appeared on his shoulder. Xeno looked at the owl and blinked, then turned back to the table where a galleon had lifted out of Hedwig's pile and was floating back towards Hermione's. Hedwig appeared on the table; her wing shot out and brushed the air behind the galleon. Crookshanks appeared as he rolled across the table and hissed at her. Hermione reached out and picked up the angry kitten, stroking his fur. "That was very rude Hedwig, and Crookshanks watch your language."

Hedwig barked at her and Hermione's frown deepened. "I don't care if you were just showing Mr. Lovegood, that's no excuse to hit him."

"You can understand them? Both of them?" Xeno asked surprised.

"Luna made an alteration to the ritual so we could all understand both of them." Hermione explained.

"Really?"

"Yes daddy, it's more convenient this way." Luna said.

"Incredible. Would you mind if I wrote about this in the Quibbler? I'm sure it would make a wonderful article."

The three traded looks before Harry spoke. "Er, if it's all the same to you sir we'd prefer if you didn't. We'd like to keep this quiet incase we're ever in trouble. Also I don't want any more fame."

"Oh yes, good points, I hadn't thought about that." Xeno admitted, sometimes his love for the Quibbler over ran his common sense, what little he would admit to having that was.

"No problem, so, do you have any ideas why Hedwig can apparently apparate and Crookshanks can turn invisible?" Harry asked.

"Well, I have heard old stories that when a creature bonds to a very powerful witch or wizard there is a small chance they may gain a magical ability. To be honest it always sounded a bit farfetched to me." Xeno said. Harry and Hermione choose to ignore the fact that he already believed in some pretty farfetched ideas. "I'll gladly keep an eye out for any information on the subject though."

"Thank you Mr. Lovegood."

0-O-0

The remainder of the summer passed quickly. For the first few days Crookshanks had to remain at Luna's until Hermione was able to get her parents to agree to let her get a kitten. During that time Crookshanks alternated between trying to 'hunt' Hedwig and learning to hunt from her. Crookshanks quickly learned that he enjoyed dropping down on his prey from above.

They alternated their days between Luna's house and Hermione's. While at Luna's Hermione carried out magical experiments. They discovered that whatever Hedwig did it was not apparition, or if it was it was different enough that normal apparition wards didn't seem to affect her. Not even house elf wards did. Hermione theorized that it could be some kind of avian travel closer to what phoenixes did. This lead to the idea to have Hedwig masquerading as a phoenix should they ever need to make use of her ability.

It took Hermione and Luna two days to figure out how to attach a transfiguration to a band that could fit around Hedwig's foot. When active it would perform a living transfiguration to give her the appearance of a phoenix. While a glamor would be easier to make it was also easier to see through.

Changing a creature's form was not that difficult, but it was impossible for a transfigured creature to have any of the magical abilities of the creature they were transfigured into. So while many people could make a normal bird look like a phoenix only Hedwig would be able to replicate their method of travel. Furthering the illusion, a glamor that would activate whenever she apparated and cause flames to appear was the finishing touch. Hedwig's only request upon seeing her phoenix transfiguration was that her color be changed to purple, when asked why she simple replied that purple was the color of royalty. Seeing no harm in it Hermione made the change.

They also studied Crookshanks invisibility. At Luna's where he tripped most wards they set however was all but undetectable to charms. They were unsure if this was due to his invisibility or the fact that he was not human, there were so few charms that checked for non-human entities. Which was why Rita Skeeter was so successful with her beetle form.

While at her house she would shine a light at him and look for any distortions behind him. She had preformed similar tests in the future using Harry's invisibility cloak. They had to be carefully though as Hermione had decided not to tell her parents she could understand Crookshanks or that he could turn invisible until at least Christmas.

Harry managed to act more or less normal around Hermione's parents on the few occasions he meet them, and thankfully Luna kept from making inappropriate comments when they were in earshot. By the first of September Hermione's mother had all but adopted Luna as a second daughter, this may have been helped by the fact that Xeno had asked the Grangers to act as Luna's muggle guardians should the need ever arise. This in turn led to discussions about magical guardians. To say the Grangers were a bit upset that no one had told them would be an understatement. Harry and Hermione suspected Luna had somehow orchestrated the entire conversation because by its end Xeno was appointed as Hermione's magical guardian. Luna refused to tell them if it was intentional though.

Hermione suspected there may also have been the use of a compulsion charm but she wasn't going to raise the issue since it fit well into their plans.

0-O-0

"All set Hermione? Did you remember everything? Extra toothbrushes?" Jean asked as her daughter came down for breakfast before they left for King's Cross station.

"Of course mum, all packed. I have been for two days." Hermione said, technically a lie but it's what her parents would expect, packing charms were so useful.

"Good, I'll just run upstairs and grab your trunk, hope you didn't load it down with books." Dan stood to retrieve his daughter's luggage but she stopped him.

"No need, I have it all right here." Hermione pulled her shrunken trunk from her pocket. "Luna loaned me a book on runes and Harry let me borrow some carving tools, it was surprisingly easy."

Dan leaned in close; the matchbox sized trunk did look like the one he had bought for her. "Er, it gets big again right?"

"It would be fairly useless if it didn't, wouldn't it?" Hermione set on the floor and tapped the trunk with her wand. It expanded back to its normal size, Hermione popped it open so her parents could see everything inside was still fine. "Runes are amazing, at some point in the past people figured out certain symbols reacted to magic and created certain effects, they experimented and discovered which symbols did what and then built whole languages around them!"

"So you just carved a few letters into it and poof it'll shrink?" Jean was amazed at what her daughter had already learned to do.

"Well runes, most are a bit more complicated than normal letters, though that also depends on which rune set you use. Norse runes tend to be the easiest. And it was more than just a few, seventy two to be exact. The original rune matrix needed over five hundred but over time people found ways to cut it down with compressed runes." Hermione explained as she re-shrunk her trunk and slipped it back into her pocket.

Hermione had briefly had the idea of taking the Knight Bus to Kings Cross with her parents, until she realized they'd have no way to return. So instead she settled into the family car as they drove to London. The station was just as crowded as she remembered and after a long good bye with her parents she stepped through the barrier onto platform nine and three quarters. Then a minute later stepped back out and went to a small coffee stand set up nearby to wait for Harry and Luna.

0-O-0

"Are you sure you won't come with us daddy?" Luna asked her father.

"I'm sorry little moon but I don't think I could bear to let you go if I came with you to the station." Xeno said sadly.

"I understand. Thank you for letting me go to Hogwarts with Harry and Hermione." Luna wrapped her arms around her father's waist and gave him the tightest hug she could muster. Which was surprisingly tight as Xeno found out.

"And you'll watch after her Harry?" Xeno fixed his gaze on the boy.

"I'll protect her with my life. If anyone try's to harm her they'll find out why Voldemort feared the Potters." Harry was pleased to see Mr. Lovegood barely shuddered at Voldemort's name.

"Thank you, now you had better get going. Oh did you remember to pack your corks?"

"Of course Daddy, we'll see you soon, Christmas isn't very far away." Luna said as they left the Rookery. They were running a little behind already because Mr. Lovegood had insisted on taking quite a few pictures of them that morning.

When they reached the road Harry held out his wand to summon the Knight Bus. Nothing happened. They traded looks and he tried again. Luna made the third attempt. When there was still no sign of the triple decker purple bus they were ready to apparate to the station. Just as they were about to leave the bus appeared with a loud crash. The doors slammed open and the drive glared down at them. "You got any idea how busy it is today? No need to keep summoning, it's rude."

The bus was packed with children and teens, trunks littered the aisle. Harry and Luna barely made it to a seat on the second deck before the bus jumped forward and they were off. Harry tumbled back into the seat, Luna landed on top of him. She only shifted enough so that she wouldn't be uncomfortable for him. Harry's arms wrapped around her waist. "Why is it so crowded today?"

"It's always like this on the first. This is what the Knight Bus was designed for. The rest of the year it's just convenient." One of the other students, a large Ravenclaw answered.

It was another twenty minutes, and several more stops before they arrived the Kings Cross station and the driver told them all to get off. The last student had barely stepped from the bus before it jerked its way back into traffic, cutting on a cab driver that tried to figure out what had just happened.

They walked inside with the rest of the students but detoured when they reached the platform and met up with Hermione. She looked up from her coffee as they set down. "No Hedwig?"

"She decided to sleep in and pop over to the school later. Where's the furry devil?" Harry asked as he glanced around for the kitten.

"I wish you'd learn to get along with Crookshanks Harry." Hermione sighed in exasperation.

"Hey I am, he thinks the nickname is cool." Harry defended himself.

"Oh, well alright then, I guess. He's on the express already. He said he would save us a compartment." Hermione explained, she had decided it was best not to think too hard on how he intended to do that.

"So has there been any sign yet?" Luna asked.

"No, but according to what Harry said we still have about five minutes before they show up."

"Good, then I'm getting something to drink while we wait." Luna said, her idea of a drink was closer to liquid sugar. Hermione felt a tooth ache coming on just watching the blond drink the concoction in her cup.

"There they are." Hermione gestured towards Molly and her children.

As Harry watched them approach the barrier to the platform he felt the old hatred towards most of them. Except for the twins, they all owed the twins more than they could ever pay back.

_Harry crouched in the ditch with Hermione and Luna on either side. The three of them were leaning heavily against each other. Nearby the Burrow groaned, the large hole the twins had made to rescue them couldn't have been good for its structural integrity. Smoke rolled off the broken wood beams. They were pinned down by a couple dozen Death Eaters, mostly those who had been their classmates._

_It was over a hundred meters to the edge of the wards; they'd never be able to make it in their condition. Hermione leaned heavily on Harry; the gash on her side looked ugly. The twins traded grim looks. "Harry, Hermione, Luna. On behalf of the Weasley we would like to apologize."_

"_For what our ex family has tried to do."_

"_Dear brother, I do believe there is only one way to restore the family honor."_

"_I believe you are correct brother of mine. Our finest prank."_

"_Our final prank. Get ready to run." They cast a charm on the others clothes and pulled a potion from their pocket._

_Hermione grimaced as a bludgeoning hex hit the tree above them. Splintered wood peppered their backs. "What are you planning to do?"_

"_We told you, our finest, final prank. The culmination of all of our research."_

"_Even if we didn't mean to make it, that was a messy day."_

"_Indeed. Harry, thank you for letting us live our dream, we've left the store to you."_

"_Wait." Harry called out but the twins had already linked arms and downed the potions. Together they jumped up and charged the group of Death Eaters._

"_For the Marauders!" The twins shouted, the Deaths Eaters smirked and cast the killing curse, it struck the twins. And did nothing. The twin's heads slumped down but they kept up the charge. It was only later Hermione figured out that they had charmed their clothes to keep them running even after they died._

_The Death Eaters froze when the twins didn't fall, it cost them seconds before they threw every curse they knew in a panic. When the curses tore through them and they fell everyone learned the twins' final prank. The explosion tore through Burrows yard and killed all of the Death Eaters present. _

_Harry used himself to cover Hermione and Luna. Before the dust had settled they were making their way towards the ward line. They would mourn the twins when they were safe. The store had been destroyed the next day._

Silently Harry swore they'd have their shop again, it was the least he could do. Hermione unconsciously touched her side where the scar from that day had been as she and Luna glared at the two youngest along with their mother. As they walked along Molly kept a tight hold on Ginny's hand and spoke loudly of muggles and platform nine and three quarters. Molly's eyes darted around the station, clearly looking for someone. Luna drew her wand. "Let me have a little fun. I'll make her think some random kid is Harry, the police can arrest her then."

"And scare some poor child?" Hermione asked. "She's on the list, let's leave her for now. We have plenty of time."

"Fine but if she tries anything with Harry…" Luna didn't need to finish, they all knew how creative she could be.

"Agreed." Harry said. "And if she does anything to either of you I can throw her under the express."

"Alright, if we have time. I don't want to be late." Hermione compromised. "Oh look, I think they've given up. You know even without the loud talk about muggles there's a red flag about them showing up right now."

"What's that?"

"They're on time." Hermione said. The three of them made their way through the barrier; Harry had a hat pulled low over his head to keep from being recognized by Molly. The express gave a warning blast of its whistle. Harry and Hermione jumped on.

Luna was about to follow when someone called her name. She cursed and turned to face Ginny. The red head gave her a curious look. "What are you doing here? Did you come to see Harry Potter too? We've been looking for him but no one has seen him, what if he misses the train? But maybe if he did we could take him there ourselves."

The blush on Ginny's face was enough to make Luna sick, she was well aware of the kinds of thought Ginny was having. Not that she didn't have similar but she had permission from Harry. "No, I'm going to Hogwarts."

"What was that dear?" Molly said as she walked over.

"I was just telling Ginny that I am going to Hogwarts, now I must be going or I'll miss the express." Luna turned and tried to get on the train but a hand shot out and grabbed her by the arm.

"Don't be ridiculous dear, you're too young, now come along and I'll take you home. You and Ginny can go next year." Molly tried to drag Luna away from the express.

"Wait, Mrs. Weasley I am going, let me go!" Luna tried to pull her arm free but the woman had at least two hundred pounds on her.

Molly drew her wand. "Now none of that, you'll do as I say or it's the spanking hex for you. I don't care what you think you'll…"

She was cut off as she fell to the ground twitching. Luna yanked her arm free from Molly's grasp as the woman toppled over, managing to _accidently_ kick her while she was at it. Luna turned to find Harry with his wand trained on Molly. "Thank you Harry."

"No problem."

The train lurched forward on the track, Luna and Harry retreated to catch it. Leaving a still twitching Molly on the platform. Hermione hung out the door, her hand extended. She grabbed Luna's hand and pulled her on. They staggered inside.

"A little help." Harry called out, he was about to run out of platform. Both girls leaned out and grabbed his hands, hauling him on just as they left the station.

"What the bloody hell was that!" They all looked up to find the sixth year female Ravenclaw perfect looking down at them.

"Some old lady tried to kidnap my friend." Harry explained. The perfect looked skeptical as they explained what happened. Harry thought it was only that they didn't have a house yet that kept the perfect from taking points. When she finally let them go they went in search of Crookshanks.

It wasn't difficult to figure out where he was as there were rumors up and down the train about a haunted compartment. So unless whatever they had done in the last month or so had more of an affect then they thought the so called ghost was just a rambunctious kitten.

A group of students was clustered around the haunted compartment. One of the older years stopped Hermione as she reached for the handle. "I wouldn't do that if I were you, rumor has it there's a nasty ghost riding the train this year."

"Really? Harry Luna, do either of you have a problem sharing a compartment with a ghost?"

"Can't be worse than Dudley." Harry said.

"I ain't afraid of no ghost." Luna sang. This earned some laughs from the muggle-borns. They stepped into the compartment and closed the door behind them, drawing the curtains closed.

Crookshanks appeared on the seat looking completely pleased with himself. _"I told you I would save you a compartment."_

"That you did, but really pretending to be a ghost?" Hermione pulled him onto her lap and began to scratch under his chin.

"_I wasn't at first but after a few children made the comment I decided to play along." _Crookshanks rolled over to give her better access to his favorite scratching places.

If anything their ride was one of their more eventful ones as every student had to see the haunted compartment for themselves. Most went away disappointed as the rumors where that it was filled with bloody hand prints and torn seats, the truth was very disappointing. Unfortunately not all of their visitors were content to leave disappointed. The perfect they had already met among them. "So it was you lot spreading rumors of a ghost."

"No, we heard the rumors and thought we'd get some peace in here, sadly that hasn't been the case." Harry had barely glanced up from his book, one of many they had taken from Potter Manor to study.

"I think you're all just trying to get attention. As soon as you're sorted I'll be speaking with your head of house." The perfect said.

Luna glared at her, she remembered this perfect from her first year, she had helped encourage her treatment by making sure no one would help her. "Why? We didn't start the rumor and have broken no school rule."

"Don't lecture me little firsty or I'll have you in detention so long your da will think you're just another fictional animal he made up." Her sneer was replaced by shock as something brushed past her leg. She spun around. There was a hiss in front of her and something hit her shoulder. The luggage racks rattled. "What, what is this?"

It couldn't be a ghost, she'd meet ghosts before. But there was something, the three first years seemed completely unconcerned. The Lovegood brat was actually smiling. She drew his wand. "What every you're doing sto…"

A force hit her wand and ripped it from her hand, it floated along the floor down the hall. Smith was many things; brave was not one of them. She ran in the opposite direction to find a seventh year, they knew how to deal with spirits. She hoped.

Crookshanks reappeared as he strolled into the compartment. Harry reached over and closed the door. The orange kitten jumped up onto Luna's lap for a good petting. "Thank you, I think we'll have to get you a fish won't we?"

"_Yes, a fish would please me. And you are welcome, I must guard my minions, I can't imagine how much trouble it would be to try and train new ones."_ Crookshanks purred under her fingers. Harry couldn't blame him.

0-O-0

It was nearly half way through the ride when Hermione jumped up. "This is it! This is how we find the other parts of Riddles soul."

"How?"

"Well it's an ancient Egyptian spell created to find parts that were once whole. It was adapted to hunt down, well I can't figure out this part, it may say something about one of their gods getting chopped up but apparently it was used to locate someone's horcruxes before." Hermione showed Luna the part she was referring to.

"I think this will work. We can use it to track down the rest once we have one."

"Alright, so we cast it on my scar and…"

"No! We are not going to cast an untested spell on you for this. We'll wait until we capture the active part of Riddle's soul or until we get the diary if the first plan fails." Hermione insisted.

Harry frowned, he didn't like the idea of waiting, the sooner Voldemort was dealt with the sooner they could go on living their lives. "What about the ring, we know where that is."

"And some of the traps, that took on Dumbledore, we won't be going after that one until after we have performed the ritual to increase out powers." Hermione said, Luna nodded her agreement.

"Fine, how's plan A coming anyways?" Harry asked.

"Well we've worked out most of what we'll need and the runes. It should only take a month or so to make. Then just be wearing it during your confrontation and presto, one caught ghost."

"Provided he's still hitching a ride on our professor." Luna added.

Before Harry could answer the door to the compartment shook. They each drew there wands and kept them hidden but ready. Harry canceled the locking charm on it. The door slid open, Draco Malfoy looked them over. "I've heard Harry Potter was in this compartment. That you then?"

Harry was torn between his ingrained dislike of Malfoy and his promise to him. "Yes, I'm Harry Potter, good to meet you cousin."

"Cousin?" Malfoy asked confused.

"Well my grandmother was a Black, same as your mother, so we're third or fourth cousins, I think."

"It's good to see that you're somewhat familiar with our world then. I can help with what you may have missed. You see there are some family's that are, better, than others. I can help you connect with those families, show you the right sort of friends to make." Malfoy sneered at Hermione and Luna, or he tried to. Really it looked more like he needed to sneeze.

"I thank you cousin but I can assure you that I have that well under control. Allow me to introduce Hermione Granger, one of the two brightest witches of our age. And Luna Lovegood, the other brightest witch. As you can see I am already familiar with the right sort of people to befriend." Harry had to hide his smile at Malfoy's dumbfounded look. Poor kid had never gone up against someone who could out talk him before. It was fun though.

"That's not what I meant, you see in our world, family counts for a great deal and..."

"I am aware of the blood purity nonsense your family endorses. I don't hold to the same belief, I will judge everyone on their own power and actions, not a name they had no choice in. Of course if you'd like to present me with proof that you are correct then I am willing to listen." Harry stated, there maybe that was enough of an olive branch to keep Malfoy from becoming so annoying this time around. And if not, well they had promised to do everything they could to save Pansy and help keep them together. They never said anything about not pranking the hell out of them.

Draco for his part was in a difficult position. Everyone knew purebloods were better; it was a simple fact as true as the color of the sky. But how did one prove something so simple everyone knew it? He would need to writ his father for advice. His thoughts were broken when someone shoved him to side. He was about to shout at them until he realized that Nott had just stormed past him into the compartment.

"You! What did you do to me; do you know what I had to endure because of you?" Nott was barely able to contain his anger. A true Death Eater knew when to strike, he had waited until Draco and his goons were there to insure he had the numbers, he had actually been waiting for a perfect that owed his family but this worked just as well. Though against three mudbloods he would have been fine alone.

Harry looked around Nott to Draco. "Any idea who this is?"

"Theodor Nott." Draco answered automatically, it was only polite after all.

"Please tell me he isn't among the 'right' families you were telling me about." Harry said.

"Eh, well actually he is." Draco admitted.

Nott glared at Malfoy, why was he wasting his time with them. "Are you going to help me hex them or not Malfoy?"

Harry stood and drew Nott's attention so that Hermione could hit him from the side if it came to a fight, Luna moved her own wand to cover Draco. "Perhaps I should introduce myself. I am Harry James Potter."

Nott paled, he had been given very strict orders in regards to Potter. Observe and only make contact if he felt that he could befriend the boy and bring him to their side. There was no question that he would suffer for this, no his only thought was how to make Potter suffer for it as well. While he was thinking Harry was moving, he grabbed Nott by the robes and shoved him out the door. Draco had the sense to move out of the way.

It was a disheveled Nott that struggled back to his feet, his wand drawn. Hermione huffed in annoyance. "Put that away before you hurt yourself."

"Do not tell me what to do you filthy mudblood." Nott growled.

Draco found it interesting that while both Potter and Lovegood had their wands drawn neither seemed overly concerned. The reason why soon became clear. Nott cried out and clutched his hand; three bleeding cuts had appeared on its back. An angry hiss was all the warning he received before _something_ bit him. Nott cried out as Harry reached for the door.

"Well cousin it was nice meeting you but at the moment your argument is looking a bit thin. Perhaps next time we speak you can provide something else to think about." Harry closed the door and reapplied the charms.

In the hall Draco looked at Nott before he Crab and Goyle returned to their compartment, he had a letter to send.

0-O-0

At Hogwarts the Sorting Hat was in a glaring match with Fawkes. Finally it gave in. "Fine I'll check the new muggle-borns to see if any has seen the Terminator 2. Why you don't just go and watch it for yourself I'll never know."

Fawkes trilled.

"I'm sure if you asked Dumbledore would let you go see a movie, and why should it matter if they don't have ticket prices for phoenixes? You can just sneak in, or leave the money at the ticket booth. With your age you can surely get a senior discount." The Sorting Hat said.

Fawkes just glared down at the hat again. Why oh why did the founders make it fire proof even to him?

0-O-0

(A/N: Thank you for reading. Comments and critiques are welcome; flames will be force feed to a random minion. Sorry for missing last week's update, I had a wisdom tooth removed and am told I spent a good portion of last Saturday trying to wonder into a nearby corn field. Also a big thank you to my beta Katzztar, thank you for all your work.)


	8. Sorting Out the Mess

Disclaimer: I own neither the Harry Potter world nor Santa, but if the poisoned cookies work that might change soon.

Tempest of the Fae

Chapter Eight: Sorting Out the Mess

0-O-0

The Hogwarts express pulled into its station. Harry Hermione and Luna took the time to stretch as they waited for the first rush of students to leave. Once things had cleared out a bit they exited the train and strolled towards Hagrid. "First years, first years this way. Hello Harry, who are your friends?"

"Hello Hagrid, this is Hermione Granger and Luna Lovegood." Harry officially introduced them.

"Lovegood? Your father wouldn't happen to be the editor of the Quibbler would he?" Hagrid asked.

Thanks to their talks from the last time line Luna knew Hagrid was an avid reader. "Yes he would be. It is a pleasure to meet you."

Hagrid reached down, his hand engulfed most of Luna's arm. "I'm a big fan; don't suppose ya could ask him if he'd mind giving me a bit of space for an article or two about some misunderstood creatures?"

The question caught Luna off guard, last time he had never mentioned writing for the Quibbler. "I'll be sure to ask daddy next time I talk to him."

"Thank ya, now best be off to the boats with all of you." Hagrid ushered them towards the shore of the lake. A discreet charm made sure they would have the boat to themselves. Once the first years were all seated Hagrid raised his umbrella and they were off across the water.

"So has anyone seen Ron yet?" Harry asked as he craned his neck to see into the other boats.

"Six boats to your left." Luna said.

"I wonder why he didn't come looking for me this time." Harry asked, he was grateful for the reprieve from meeting their former friend but couldn't help and wonder about the reason behind the redheads absence.

"No idea," Hermione said, "but let's not look a gift horse in the mouth."

Luna gave her a funny look. "Then how would you check its teeth?"

"That's the point Luna." Hermione said. She would later blame Luna's comment for their luck running out just after the boats reached the dock. They followed Hagrid up the stepped and lined up near the door when a red head shoved his way past Hermione and Luna.

"Harry Potter right? I've been looking all over for you." Ron said with more than a hint of relief in his voice.

Harry supposed Ron's early behavior, his apparent meekness on the train the first time they meet, was just an act to make them seem similar. Either that or their changes had already altered Ron's personality. "And why were you looking for me?"

"So we can be mates of course. My families been in Gryffindor for generations and where else could you end up? You're not a snake that's for sure. Or a squib so Hufflepuff is out and you're not a book worm are you? So Gryffindor it is." Ron stated proudly, as if he could actually decide such things.

Harry took a minute to consider Ron's more aggressive attitude. Could it be because he hadn't had the train ride to sound him out and decided to be blunter? That seemed a bit complicated for the Ron he knew. "You know you remind me of someone."

"Oh yeah, who?"

"My cousin, Draco Malfoy." Harry smiled at Ron's dumbfounded look.

"What! I'm nothing like that slimy snake!" Ron shouted, drawing everyone else's attention.

"You're right, you aren't. While both of you said similar things he was polite about it. You, you are too loud of voice and small of mind. Plus you shoved my friends. Why would I want to be your friend after that?" Harry asked, more than a few people snickered at Ron's reaction.

"Friends?" Ron turned around and found two angry girls. "Loony? What the bloody hell are you doing here?"

"As I told your mother I am attending Hogwarts." Luna said airily.

"Listen Harry mate, you do not want to be seen with her. She's crazy." Ron stuck a finger to his head and moved it in a circle to emphasize his point.

"Listen here Weasley." Harry stood straight and projected his magic. It wouldn't fool an adult but among the children it was a good trick for making him seem more impressive. "Luna is not crazy, she is my friend and neither you nor anyone else will insult her. I will not allow you or your family to belittle my friends."

"His mother was the one who tried to kidnap me." Luna happily supplied.

"Really? Well at least now I know where you received your intelligence. That's two strikes. One more and I will be speaking with your head of house." Of course being underage there wasn't much Harry could actually do, yet. But having the Boy-Who-Lived publicly mad at your family wasn't a good thing.

Ron rounded on Luna. "What did you do to him? We were supposed to be best mates!"

"I don't know where you got the delusion that we would ever be best mates but after the way you have treated my friends it will not happen. However just to shut you up, if by some misfortune we both end up in Gryffindor I will give you one more chance." Harry said hoping to cut Ron off before he said something that caused Harry to scrap their plans and just chuck the redhead into the lake.

"Oh, no worries then." Ron smiled. The three time travelers were thrown off guard by his quick emotional change.

Before Ron could stick his foot in his mouth again McGonagall entered and gave her normal speech about your house being your family. When she finished they followed the crowd up into the great hall. The candles hung throughout the room, most of the students were stunned by the beauty. Harry ignored everything to focus on the head table, the Headmaster smiled at the new students. _Let's see what we can do to get rid of the smile shall we?_

0-O-0

Lucius was suppressed when an owl arrived for him that evening from his son. A check of the time revealed that he should have only just arrived at Hogwarts so the letter must have been sent while he was still on the train. What could have been so important? He broke the seal and unfolded the parchment.

_Dear Father,_

_ I made contact with Potter on the train with mixed results. He greeted me as a cousin by the Black family; this as well as his actions lead me to believe he has some knowledge of our world and his place in it. The bad news is that he does not currently hold to our beliefs about blood, though he was sharing at compartment with a pureblood, Luna Lovegood, as well as a __**mudblood**__. He said he would be willing to revise his position if I was able to provide proof that we are correct about blood purity. It is such a known fact though I am unsure how to proceed. Unfortunately before we could continue our discussion Nott burst into the compartment threatening Potter. Potter showed no sign of alarm and calmly inquired if Nott was one of the 'right' families I had previously mentioned setting our plans back. Potter then physically removed Nott from the compartment, when he drew his wand. I am unsure how to describe what happened and am forced to rely on rumors. The compartment they were in was said to be haunted by a ghost, the rumors also state that the __**mudblood**__ is the one who controlled it. When Nott drew his wand she told him to put it away before he hurt himself. When he did not he was injured. No spells were fired however three cuts appeared on his hand. There are also rumors that a Ravenclaw perfect that entered the compartment was attacked and had their wand stolen. There is no proof to tie any of them to what happened though from observations I believe whatever attacked Nott was indeed under the control of the __**mudblood**__. If so she may prove useful. I request information that will prove blood superiority and time to further observe Potter._

_Your faithful son,_

_Draco_

Lucius leaned back and considered the content of the letter. A mudblood that could control a spirit of some type was worrisome, however there was no proof. Reluctantly he approved, Potters companions would need watching. Potter seemed open to their view which was good. For now he needed to speak with Nott Sr. about his son's actions.

0-O-0

When Hermione's name was called she stepped up and placed the Sorting Hat upon her head. _Ah Miss Granger it is a pleasure to see you again, hm fully formed shields, I take it that means your ritual worked."_

"_Wait you remember? How?"_

"_I know many things, but that is not one of them. Imagine my surprise when I arrived back here over the summer. Screamed so loud I woke Fawkes and he set fire to the Headmasters office."_

Hermione snorted as she held in a laugh at the images the Sorting Hat provided._ "That's great."_

"_Indeed it was, now have you given any thought to what house you'll be in this time? Ravenclaw maybe? I did receive a lot of talk for not placing you there last time."_

"_Thank you but no, we're all going to Hufflepuff."_

"_Well you are all certainly loyal enough and know how to work hard. Very well." _"Hufflepuff!" The Sorting Hat shouted. Hermione set him down as she made her way to the badger table and took a seat making sure to save two more for the others.

When Luna's name was called she skipped to the hat and put it on. _"Hello again."_

"_Hello, I'm glad your ritual worked. Miss Granger tells me you've all decided on Hufflepuff?"_

"_We have. I didn't like Ravenclaw much last time, Gryffindor spent as much time against Harry as for him and the Slytherins weren't nice either. Hufflepuff by default was the least offensive."_ Though they had still had their moments perhaps by being one of them they could limit such incidents.

"_Very well, I hope you are happier there then Ravenclaw."_

"_I am sure I will be, after all I'll have Harry and Hermione with me. By the way will you tell me your name now?"_ Over their conversations she had never been able to get him to tell her his name.

The Sorting Hat sighed. "_Well I suppose I might as well since we will all be seeing each other more and referring to me as Hat will get old. It is Hathfojd."_

"_Hathfojd?"_

"_Never let Godric name _anything_. He was a great wizard but by god the names he came up with. Did you know he spent several years calling Fawkes Redspark? I'd avoid calling him that by the way, it's still a bit of a sore spot."_

"_I will, and thank you for everything."_

"_My pleasure."_ "Hufflepuff!" Luna took off Hathfojd and skipped to her seat by Hermione.

A hush fell over the crowd when Harrys name was called. He set the Sorting Hat on his head. _"Ah and the last of our time traveling trio."_

"_You know?"_

"_I remember, somehow. And I am not above providing some more help to keep from getting stuck in that case again. Such as informing you the Headmaster is being quite adamant that you are placed in Gryffindor."_

"_He can't hear us can he?"_

"_Not unless I chose to let him. Now before you are sorted would you like to have a little fun?"_

"_You're a prankster?"_ Harry had always pictures the Sorting Hat as more refined and above such things.

The Sorting Hat laughed, confusing those listening in the great hall. _"All the founders were pranksters in some way, and since I have a bit of all of them."_

"_Right, so what's your idea?"_

Dumbledore frowned, how difficult was it to place Harry into Gryffindor? The Sorting Hat wasn't even letting him listen! Now that was just rude. Ah there, _"You could be great you know, it's all here in your head, and Slytherin would help you get there. Oh my yes, such potential."_

"_Not Slytherin." _Dumbledore sent, that would be the worst case scenario.

"_What's that Headmaster? Not Slytherin, I see well there's just one choice then."_

Dumbledore sighed with relief. "Hufflepuff!"

The hall was quiet as Harry jumped up and ran towards the Hufflepuff table to join his friends. Dumbledore nearly fell from his chair, how had that happened? The badgers were the first house to recover and cheered for their newest member. Slytherin recovered next and added their own polite applause, amused that the Boy-Who-Lived was probably a squib. Ravenclaw was next, Gryffindor were the last ones to break from their stupor and gave a few halfhearted claps. They'd all but been assured they'd get Potter.

McGonagall couldn't believe that the son of two of her favorite students hadn't made it into her house. When she finally recovered the sorting continued. While the rest of the students were sorted Harry was busy answering whispered questions from his new house. He was pulled from the conversation when Ron's name was called and a feeling of dread settled in his stomach. Dumbledore glared at the Sorting Hat until it reluctantly called out. "Hufflepuff and my apologies to your house mates."

Ron missed the insult and hurried to join his house. Thankfully the other puffs had crowded around to speak with Harry so there were no readily available spot for him. Not that he let that stop him. He wedged himself in across the table from Harry. "Budger over, gotta sit by my best mate."

"We are not mates Ron." Harry shot back.

"Sure we are, you said you'd be my best mate if we got into he same house." Ron said.

"No, what I said was that if I had the misfortune of being placed into Gryffindor with you I would give you one more chance. We are not in Gryffindor so that deal means nothing. And even if I had given you another chance shoving two of our housemates aside for a spot would have used it up." Harry said. The other first years had all heard the conversation and agreed, the upper years weren't impressed with what they had seen of Ron so far.

"But, but we're supposed to be best mates!"

"Why?"

"Cause you're the Boy-Who-Lived!" Ron shouted as if it were obvious.

They ignored his sputtering as Dumbledore stood and gave his welcoming speech including the warning about a most horrible death to those who dared the third floor corridor. The only down side to the feast was watching Ron eat, Harry hadn't realized how much they had improved his manners over their time at Hogwarts. Hermione spent most of the feast talking with Susan and Hanna.

When the food was cleared away, to Ron's disappointment, they stood to follow the perfects to their common room. However McGonagall intercepted them before they cloud leave the great hall. "Mr. Potter, Miss Granger, Miss Lovegood. The Headmaster wishes to speak with all of you in his office."

"May we ask why?" Hermione asked.

"I do not know." McGonagall replied curtly.

Luna looked around the great hall. "Professor Sprout!" She waved her hands to get their head of houses attention.

Sprout came over. "Is there something wrong Minerva?"

"No, the Headmaster has just requested a meeting with these three." McGonagall said.

"As our head of house we request that you accompany us." Hermione said.

"Well of course I'll come if it makes you feel more comfortable." Pomona said, she could remember how frightening it was to be a first year, and two of the three of them had been raised by muggles. "I'll see them there Minerva."

"Very well." McGonagall nodded and turned to follow her own house.

Pomona led them from the great hall and towards the Headmasters office. "I don't suppose any of you have an idea about what the Headmaster wants to speak with you about?"

"I assume it's about the attempted kidnapping." Luna supplied. Harry and Hermione tried not to laugh when Professor Sprout stopped and spun to face them. Luna's innocent way of giving information was always amusing.

"What kidnapping attempt?" Sprout demanded.

"Molly Weasley tried to kidnap me from the platform. Even though she has no legal right to tell me what to do and after I informed her that I was attending Hogwarts this year with my father permision. When I refused to go with her she threatened me with her wand." Luna said.

"What happened?" The thought of someone trying to kidnap anyone from the platform brought back memories from the last war.

Luna latched onto Harrys arm. "Harry saved me of course."

"And how did you do that Mr. Potter?"

"Well I read some of my parent's journals, before my aunt found them and destroyed them for being freak items. I remember some of the spells though I'd never used them before. I hit the fat woman with a hex that makes you lose control of your muscles. She let go of Luna and we ran." The story of the journals was the cover they had come up with if they needed to explain away any knowledge he had. Luna was a pureblood so she could have picked up things anywhere and Hermione devoured books.

"I see, officially because you weren't sorted yet I can not award points, unofficially very good work watching out for a friend, I believe you will do well in Hufflepuff. But you should have reported it."

"We did, to a Ravenclaw perfect." Hermione said. "Though when she found us later she thought we were behind the rumors that there was a ghost in our compartment so she may have just ignored us."

"I see, I'll speak with Professor Flitwick about that. Even if they thought you were lying it should have been reported." Sprout said as they resumed their walk to the Headmasters office. When they reached the gargoyle she said. "Yummy Mummy."

The stone guardian leapt out of the way and they stepped onto the stairs. The Headmasters voice ushered them in. "Pomona, a pleasant surprise as always. To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"You wanted to see these three didn't you?"

"Yes but I asked Minerva to retrieve them." Dumbledore said as he looked over the three first years.

"And they asked me to accompany them as their head of house." Sprout said.

"Of course. Please everyone have a seat." He gestured towards the chairs set before his desk. They hadn't noticed their first time through but everything was set up to place the Headmaster at an advantage. His desk was solid and sat on a slightly raised area of the office. The smaller chairs before it would make sure the Headmaster could look down at even an adult, well except for Hagrid. The wall of portraits set behind him and to the right would draw attention and increase the feelings of awe towards the Headmaster. It was all very well done and mostly useless against them.

They made sure to avoid looking directly at Dumbledore. While direct eye content was needed for deep probes without a wand, it was possible to skim the surface as long as you could see the other person's eyes. However this method was very weak and unreliable.

Dumbledore leaned forward. "I must say Mr. Potter I was suppressed that you were sorted into Hufflepuff."

"Why? Is there something wrong with my house sir?" Harry asked, treat him like a kid and get spanked. Professor Sprout did not seem happy.

The Headmaster apparently realized it as well and backtracked. "No of course there isn't, only that both your parents were in Gryffindor and normally children are sorted into the house their parents were in."

"I didn't know that, then again until Hagrid arrived I was always told my parents were unemployed drunks who died in an auto wreck so I wouldn't have wanted to be anything like them. It's a bit hard to get over a life time of conditioning." Harry caught the appalled look on Sprout's face, perfect.

"I was unaware of that." Dumbledore said.

"That's alright, of course I guess I could have gone to Slytherin as well and spent time with my Cousin Draco. I never knew I had any relatives except the Dursleys so I wouldn't mind a chance to get to know them." Harry was barely able to keep from laughing when the Headmasters face paled. Hopefully this would kill any ideas about trying to get him to switch houses.

"Yes well, the reason you are here is because you are facing charges of assault and underage magic. Harry, these are very serious charges." Dumbledore said, he could place the child in his debt if he could convince him that he was the only one protecting him. Pomona's presence would mean he needed to be more careful but that was fine.

"I assume you mean against the fat woman at the platform?" Harry asked.

"Mrs. Weasley, her family has been firmly aligned with the light for several generations." Dumbledore informed them.

"Then why did she try to kidnap me?" Luna cut in.

"I am sure that was only a misunderstanding."

"I don't think so, she knew she had no legal authority over me, was informed that I was attending Hogwarts this year yet still tried to remove me by force and threatened me with her wand before Harry stepped in." Luna informed the Headmaster.

"Has Luna's father been informed yet?" Hermione piped up. "And if Harrys in trouble maybe we should call Susan's aunt, she mentioned she was in magical law."

"I really don't think there is any reason to involve them." Dumbledore said trying to cut them off, he did not need madam Bones involved in this.

Pomona had had it. "Of course there is! A child was almost kidnapped off the platform, I don't care if Molly didn't mean any harm she broke the law. At the very least Mr. Lovegood should be here. In fact I demand that he is summoned before anything else happens."

Because the Hufflepuffs rarely got caught breaking any serious rules Dumbledore sometimes forgot their head of house had fangs even Flitwick feared to cross. "Of course, I merely hoped to settle the matter so that he did not need to worry."

"Why don't I just use your floo to call him then?" Pomona offered.

"He's probably at the office." Luna said and gave her the floo address for the Quibbler. Less than a minute last Mr. Lovegood stepped out of the fireplace.

He walked over and hugged Luna. "Now what's this all about, only here a few hours and already in trouble? Harry I thought you said you'd watch after her."

"He did daddy, he stopped Mrs. Weasley from kidnapping me." Luna said.

"What?" The next ten minutes were spent retelling what happened on the platform and train, including the Ravenclaw perfect accusing them of spreading rumors. When they finished Xeno turned to Harry and bowed. "Thank you, Harry, for watching after my little moon."

"I told you didn't I? Anyone who tries to hurt Luna or Hermione would find out why Voldemort feared my family. Just wish I knew something worse than that hex." Harry said.

"Speaking of that hex my boy, where did you learn it. You do know you are forbidden from practicing magic outside of Hogwarts until you are of age." Dumbledore saw another chance to place Harry within his debt, making any problems with having already cast magic go away.

"No sir I wasn't. Hagrid must have forgotten to mention it to me. Doesn't matter though as I hadn't cast any spells before that. I didn't want to risk my relatives seeing me do magic because they'd probably beat me again." Harry said, hoping to get their head of house firmly in his corner.

"What?" Sprout glared at the Headmaster.

"Come now Harry I am sure you are exaggerating."

"Believe whatever you wish to Headmaster, ignoring it won't help the scars heal though."

"Yes, well, back to where you learned that hex."

"From my parent's journals. I found them a couple of weeks ago when the Dursleys wanted me to clean the attic. Had lots of spells and stuff in them. I managed to memorize a few before my aunt threw them all away for being freak things." Harry explained. He had worried that revealing so much of what had happened to him would be difficult but so far it hadn't been.

Dumbledore was silent as he reviewed everything from that evening. The plan had been simple, get the three of them to his office, inform them of the trouble they could be facing then swoop in and rescues them. He had counted on them being afraid of the consequences; however they were calm and quickly saw through his attempts. Now with both Sprout and Xeno firmly on their side he had nothing left to work with, best to cut the plan short for now. Gather more information over the coming months and come up with something new. "Very well in light of these events there will be no punishment this time for using magic outside of Hogwarts. I will take care of the paper work. Professor Sprout if you could show them to their common room?"

"Of course." Sprout stood and motioned for them to follow.

Luna gave her father another hug. "Hagrid would like to speak with you about writing for the Quibbler."

"I'll send him an owl when I get back; I suppose all of this explains why Molly was floo calling all day and yelling until I blocked her." Xeno mused.

"Don't worry daddy Harry and Hermione watched out for me just like they said they would. I'll be fine."

"I know, I love you little moon."

"I love you too daddy." Luna let him go and watched him step through the floo before she followed the others out of the office.

0-O-0

Xeno stepped out into the small office of the Quibbler, then turned around and stepped back into the fire heading for the ministry. With any luck Arthur was still in his office. They needed to speak. Luck was with him as Arthur was still hunched over his desk, the remains of some muggle device spread out around him. "Oh good evening Xeno, what are you doing here?"

"Hello Arthur, we need to have a talk. I appreciate everything your family has done from me and Luna, especially after my wife passed away. Merlin knows I know nothing about raising a little girl. However you have to speak with Molly. She crossed the line today and if it gets out I can only imagine the trouble you and your family will have."

"What happened? Is everyone alright?" Dozens of scenarios rushed through Arthurs mind.

"For now. Luna asked if she could attend Hogwarts a year early to be with her friends. I couldn't say no to her. Well this morning while she was getting on the express Molly pulled her right off, refused to listen to her and threatened her. The only reason she didn't miss the train was because her friends stepped in and hit Molly with a hex. Nothing serious but enough that she released Luna."

Arthur put his head in his hands. He knew his wife was strong willed but this, this was too far by any standards. "I'll speak with her."

"You may need to do more than that. One of Luna's friends is Harry Potter. If the vultures at the Prophet get ahold of this…" Xeno knew first hand just what those so called reports could do.

"It would be a disaster for my family." Arthur finished.

"That it would, oh and Arthur, tell your wife if she ever tries to do that to my daughter again…" Most people only thought of Mr. Lovegood as the odd man who published a strange magazine. What few ever realized was that he had braved some of the most dangerous locations and animals in the world. Arthur was reminded of that fact there in his office. Xeno was not someone who could not defend his family.

"Right. I'll take care of it."

0-O-0

(A/N: Originally this chapter was much longer; however after I received it back from my wonderful beta Katzztar and started my final review I decided to cut it in two. Xenos talk with Arthur was a natural stopping point and made it feel more manageable. Thank you for reading. Comments and critiques are welcome; flames will be force feed to a random minion.)


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